


n* .0".. -^i^ aN 



^■^-o< 



**' .--J^- '*^ 



■0*^ . • ■ • » 









The Names of Jesus. 



REV. A. B, SIMPSON. 





•fci*^ NaA 




PUBLISHED BY 

THE CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE PUB. CO. 

692 Eighth Avenue, 

New York. 



. -^'i. 



■^'- 



^%^ 

-^^ 



Copyrighted. 1892, by A. B. Simpson. 



■*^««/NG 



^0;^ 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Chapter I. 

The Wonderful, . . . . . 9 

Chapter II. 
The Rock of Ages, . . . . .37 

Chapter III. 
The First and the Last, . . . . 47 

Chapter IV. 
Christ the Living Way, . . . .62 

Chapter V. 

Christ our Surety, . . . . 77 

Chapter VL . 

Christ our Passover, . . . .93 



Chapter VII. 
Christ our Prophet, . . . .106 

Chapter VIII. 
Making David King, .... 135 

Chapter IX. 
Christ our Head, ..... 142 

Chapter X. 
Our Horn of Salvation, . . . .165 

Chapeer XI. 
The Key of David, .... 189 

Chapter XII. 
The Corner, . . . . . .208 

Chapter XIII. - 
The Refiner, . . . . ; 222 

Chapter XIV. 
TheBaptizer, . . . . . .340 

Chapter XV. 
Christ the Living Head, . . .371 



The Names of Jesus. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE WONDERFUL. 



"His name shall be called the Wonderful Coun- 
selor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the 
Prince of Peace." 

fHE idea of a child king was not unfamil- 
iar to the Old Testament. Little Samuel 
had been Israel's best prophet and judge; and 
young Josiah, wearing a crown at the tender 
age of five, was the best of Judah's kings 
after David. 

In English history, the most honored name, 
perhaps, is Edward VI. , the youthful king 
of the sixteenth century. 

All these were types of Jesus, God's holy 
and anointed King. With beautiful simplic- 
ity, even after His resurrection and ascension. 



10 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

the apostles speak of Him in their prayers to 
the Father as ''thy Holy Child, Jesus." He 
Himself has told us that His best represent- 
ative on earth is a little child : for, ''He that 
receiveth a little child in my name (that is, 
belonging to me), receiveth me." And even 
His Father in heaven is not ashamed to be 
represented by the same little child. "He 
that receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent 
me." 

There is nothing more beautiful in an old 
and venerable man, than the simplicity of 
childhood which often characterizes the 
greatest minds. Perhaps when we meet with 
our God, we will be most touched of all by 
the simplicity of His presence. At least, it 
is very beautiful to know that the Christ 
who comes still to guide and govern us is a 
child Christ, gentle as the touch of an infant's 
hand, accessible as your own little ones, easy 
to approach, simple and loving as an inno- 
cent child; yet mighty as the Mighty God, 
and the Everlasting Father. It is very 
touching to notice in the last book of the 



THE WONDERFUL. 11 

Bible (the Apocalypse), that Jesus is contin- 
ually described by a diminutive term of 
peculiar endearment ; not the Lamb, as it is 
translated in our version, but, literally, ' ' the 
little Lamb, the dear Lamb of God." 

Let us look, hov^ever, at the other side of 
the picture, and, as we do, let us carry with 
us the conception of the child. Four illus- 
trious and glorious names are here given to 
Jesus. 

1. '^He is the Wonderful Counselor." 
This name has reference to His prophetic 
work and office ; for He is our prophet as 
well as our king, the great teacher and guide 
to His people. The term '^counselor" has 
reference to His guidance rather than to His 
teaching. One may know much, and be able 
to say much, and yet not be a good counselor. 
Jesus is our wisdom, and leads His trusting 
children in the right paths, wherein they 
shall not stumble. 

He is a Wonderful Counselor ; first. He 
often leads us contrary to the ideas, opinions, 
and judgments even of wise men, and His 



12 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

thoughts are as high above our thoughts as 
the heavens above the earth. If He is our 
guide He will often bid us do things which 
prudence regards as folly, possibly as fanati- 
cism ; but God will vindicate His own wisdom 
in the end, and '^Wisdom shall be justified 
of her children. " It seemed a very foolish 
thing to the Canaanites for an army to march 
seven days around their city walls, and then 
simply blow their trumpets and shout ; but 
it was the wisest way to take Jericho. It 
seemed a very foohsh thing to ask a woman 
— a widow — to give away her last handful 
of meal to a stranger, when she and her boy 
were starving ; but it was the best way to 
save her and her boy from starvation, and to 
open the way for a continual supply for the 
coming months. It seemed an absurd thing 
for young David to face the giant Philistine 
with a simple sling and stones ; but it was 
the only way by which he could have ob- 
tained the victory. It seemed absurd to 
commit to twelve fishermen the task of 
evangelizing the world ; but it was God's 



THE WONDERrUL. 13 

Mdsdom, and it became God's mighty power. 
It may have appeared to Phillip very strange 
for the divine message to come to him to 
leave Samaria in the height of his great 
evangelistic work there, and go down into a 
lonely desert, where he could not expect to 
meet a soul ; but it was God's way to preach 
the gospel to the Prince of Ethiopia, and, 
through him to the whole of Northern 
Africa. He leadeth us by a way that we 
know not ; but it is ever the right way, and 
we shaU thank Him at last that He has 
proved our Wonderful Counselor. 

Again, He is a Wonderful Counselor be- 
cause the people He leads are such weak 
and foolish people. When we commit our- 
selves to the guidance of Christ we become 
weaker in ourselves, even than others, ceas- 
ing to look to our own wisdom. Without 
His guidance we should indeed be utterly 
helpless, but this is our very strength. The 
little child ^vho knows nothing of the way 
through the strange city is safer than the 
one who knows a little, because the latter is 



14 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

very apt to trust in its imperfect knowledge, 
and go astray ; whereas, the former, know- 
ing nothing, simply holds its mother's hand, 
and is safely led by one who knows better. 
And so it is said of the heavenly pathway, 
^'The wayfaring man, though a fool, shall 
not err therein. " ^ ' I am not sufficient, " says 
Paul, "even to think anything as of myself; 
but my sufficiency is of God," and it is indeed 
wonderful how the most simple-hearted and 
uneducated minds are led by the Holy Spirit, 
not only into the full knowledge of God's 
Word, but kept from error and mistake, and 
guided safely through all the mazes of life's 
pathway ! 

Thirdly, This Counselor is wonderful in 
His patience and love. He is willing to take 
infinite trouble with us. Over and over 
again does He teach us the lessons we are so 
slow to learn. Over and over again does He 
repair our mistakes, and lift us up from our 
stumblings, and say to us, "How is it that 
ye do not understand ? " There is no diffi- 
culty too intricate for Him to unravel. There 



THE WONDERFUL. 15 

is no little detail of life too petty for Him to 
take an interest in. There is no toil too te- 
dious for Him to go through with us. There 
is no tangle too involved for Him to unthread 
and loose. There is no complication of diffi- 
cult circumstances too extreme for Him to 
be willing to take hold of and lead us gently 
out into the light ; and even our stupidity 
and rebellion have not always provoked Him 
to leave us ; but He waits and loves us, and 
leads us, until at last He brings us into His 
perfect will and our hearts are ready to say, 
"Wonderful Counselor, patient Teacher, 
gentle Christ — who teacheth like Him ?" 

Fourthly, The best of all about this won- 
derful Counselor is that He does not merely 
tell us what to do, and give us a chart of the 
way, but He comes with us every step of the 
way and becomes our personal guide. Were 
you to go to Cairo and try to find from some 
Bedouin directions about the best way to 
cross the desert, or perhaps some map of the 
way or some itinerary of stations, he would 
laugh at you and say, ''Why you will never 



16 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

find your way in that manner. I cannot tell 
you the way, but I will go with you and 
show you the way. I will be your personal 
guide." This is exactly what Jesus does. 
He says, ^'I am the way, and the truth, and 
the hf e. " He says, when He putteth forth His 
own sheep, He goeth before them, and they 
know His voice, and a stranger will they 
not follow, for they know not the voice of 
strangers. ''The Comforter, who is the 
Holy Ghost, shall abide with you forever, and 
He shall guide you into all truth." 

How may we have the guidance of this 
wonderful Counselor ? 

First, it is always indispensable that we 
shall be wholly yielded to follow His guidance 
and have a single purpose to please Him only. 
Willfulness will ever miss the way, but "the 
meek shall He guide in judgment, and the 
meek (the yielded ones, the little and bend- 
ing hearts) shall He teach His way." 

Secondly, we must bring to Him every 
particular need and acknowledge Him in all 
our ways, and He shall direct our steps. It 



THE WONDERFUL. 17 

will not do to take it as a matter of course, 
and say it will be all right anyhow, for the 
very thing in which we ignore Him is most 
likely to go wrong just because we have 
trusted in general and not specifically recog- 
nized Him. 

Again, let us not expect startling revela- 
tions to come, but go by the simple light of 
His Word and our sanctified judgment and 
the voice of the Spirit as He speaks to us 
through quiet convictions, intuitions, and 
impulses. There are voices and voices. There 
is light which will come to us all, but it is 
false light. It may often be known by its 
blaze and glare. Grod's light is the soft and 
simple hght which rests us, and brings the 
satisfying sense of His presence and peace. 

Again, if we have His light, let us be will- 
ing to take it step by step. We shall not 
see all the way at once, but as we follow on 
we shall know the Lord in all His fullness, 
and all His purposes will ripen and unfold in 
all their fullness. 



18 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 
II. THE MIGHTY GOD. 

He who is our Counselor is also abundantly 
able to carry out His plans, and He always 
follows up His directions with His strong 
and mighty hand. He never sends us on 
any path without standing by us and seeing 
us through. He who sends Israel around 
Jericho never fails to level the walls at the 
right moment. He who bids the people go 
forward into the sea, never fails to divide 
the floods. He who sends us through the 
waters and the fires, never fails to go before 
us and keep them from overflowing us. He 
who bids us march up against the gates of 
brass, never fails to precede us and break in 
pieces the brazen gates and make the crooked 
places straight. When the Holy Spirit is 
working in us, the mighty Providence of 
God is always working outside of us in per- 
fect correspondence and ^preparation. 

The Christ of the Gospels is the Jehovah of 
the Old Testament, the God who said to 
Jeremiah, Is there anything too hard for 
Him ? He is the God of creation and of prov- 



THE WONDERFUL. 19 

idence — the God who said to Moses, ^'I hft 
up my hand and say, ^I Hve forever,' and 
who is there that can dehver out of my hand?" 
He is able to control all the forces and ele- 
ments of nature, able to restrain all the 
influences and movements of society, and 
turn the hearts of men at His pleasure, and 
overthrow their counsels and their works. 
He is able to save the lost, to pardon the 
guiltiest soul, to cleanse the blackest heart, 
to renew the most wrecked and ruined life. 
He is able to fill the heart of sorrow with 
untroubled gladness. He is able to take 
away the strongest tendencies to sin, and 
give the degraded and selfish soul the power 
to do that which is right and holy. He is 
able to satisfy our inmost, utmost being. He 
is able to put His own heart and nature in 
the most corrupt and helpless soul. He is 
able to touch the springs of physical life, and 
fill them with His own strength and healing. 
He is able to meet the temptations that over- 
come us, and to make us more than con- 
querors in all things through His love. He 



20 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

is able to make even our little lives mighty 
forces for everlasting good, and so clothe us 
with His power that we shall be able to ''open 
the blind eyes, and turn men from darkness 
into light, and from the very power of Satan 
to God." He is still standing in our midst 
and saying : ' ' All power is given unto God 
in heaven and in earth, and lo, I am with 
you alway, even unto the end of the world." 
He is greater than the greatest difficulty in 
your life, the greatest sin, the greatest sor- 
row, the greatest failure. Over against the 
things that are too strong for you, too hard 
for you, from this day place Him, your 
mighty God ; only touch the hand of that 
little Child, and lo, all the forces of Omnipo- 
tence, if need be, will be called forth to blast 
the very rocks of adamant, to roll back the 
tides of the ocean, to prepare the way for His 
ransomed. 

" When He makes bare His arm, 
Who shall His power withstand ? 
When He His people's cause defends, 
Who, who shall stay His hand ? " 



THE WONDERFUL. 21 

III. HE IS THE FATHER OF ETERNITY. 

This is the true translation of this strange 
verse. It means that His being is unlimited; 
His years eternal ; His element is a bound- 
less one, and all^His plans and thoughts are 
shaped and drawn on a gigantic, nay, an 
infinite scale. When we come into God, we 
come into the infinite. Eternity begins for 
us before time ends. The life we have now 
is eternal life. It takes hold upon illimitable 
things. There is about it a depth and a 
height, a length and a breadth that defy 
all calculations and computations, and the 
things that we take from God and do for 
God are eternal things. But a little we see 
now of what shall be revealed ; but when 
He shall appear we shall be like Him. But 
let us build to-day for eternity. Let all our 
thoughts and plans and hopes be in view of 
the gigantic future, the colossal scale which 
is to unfold when we pass through the nar- 
row gates of the earthly life into the illimit- 
able beyond. Let us ever see ourselves as 
we shall be then, and our work as it shall 



22 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

seem then. Let us be content with nothing 
that is not going to last. Let us, too, belong 
to the ages to come, like Him. Ours is not 
an ephemeral breath of life, like the flutter- 
ing moth or butterfly, like the flashing 
meteor of the sky. We shall live when the 
sun is burned to ashes, and the stars have 
faded away, or taken on their new and 
evei^lasting forms ; and could we see to-day, 
the scope of our future being, the height of 
our future glory, the grandeur of our future 
recompense, we would be afraid. We would 
be paralyzed with awe, and then with shame 
at the pettiness of our conceptions of God, 
and our expectations from Him ; let us give 
our future to Him who is the Father of 
Eternity; let us lay up our treasures in hands 
that will give them back there, with the 
compound interest of their glory. Let us 
take more of the vastness rise to more of 
the boundlessness of thought and purpose, 
of love and faith, of joy and service, which 
He expects of those who would be worthy 
of His great and infinite heart that throbs 
within our breasts. 



THE WONDERFUL. 23 

IV. HE IS THE PRINCE OF PEACE. 

There is an allusion here to the kingdom 
of Solomon, whose name was significant of 
peace, and whose reign was typical of the 
coming King, his greater Son. It is to Him 
that the seventy-second Psalm is dedicated, 
with its beautiful words, ^^The mountains 
shall bring peace to the people, and the little 
hills, by righteousness. In his days shall 
the righteous flourish, and abundance of 
peace as long as the moon endureth." 

His first conquest is through the gospel 
of peace. Having made peace through the 
blood of the cross. He came to preach peace 
to them that were afar off, and to them that 
were nigh. His coming was heralded with 
the words, "Peace on earth: goodwill to 
men." His last bequest before He died was, 
"Peace 1 leave with you, my peace I give 
unto you. " His benediction as He arose and 
met them in the upper room was, ' ' Peace 
be unto you." Being justified by faith, we 
have peace with God. He brings to the 
guilty heart the sense of pardon, and eternal 



24 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

peace, and then He brings to the surrendered 
heart the deeper rest that comes from pas- 
sion and sin subdued and perfect trust in 
Him as the sovereign and keeper of the soul. 
He brings peace by conquest, but His con- 
quest is that of love, the soul subdued into 
harmony with Him with its own consent, 
and every part of our being in harmony 
with itself. 

Nay, His glorious kingdom of peace ex- 
tends further, for it brings us into perfect 
harmony with all the relations of life and 
circumstances that surround us, so that the 
soul in which this glorious Prince reigns 
easily adjusts itself to every situation, and 
it finds God adjusting everything in its life 
in glorious rest and fitness, so that it is true 
that when a man's ways please the Lord He 
maketh even his enemies to be at peace with 
him ; and where things are at war with us we 
have a still higher victory, and can cry, with 
the apostle, ' ' We know that all things work 
together for good to them that fear God, to 
them that are the called of God according to 



THE WONDERFUL. 25 

His purpose." ^'I have learned in whatso- 
ever state I am therewith to be content. I 
know how to be abased, and I know how to 
abound ; everywhere, and in all things I am 
instructed to be full and to be hungry, both 
to abound and to suffer need. I can do all 
things through Christ that strengtheneth 
me." 

And so the government shall be upon His 
shoulder ; and when it is, it is true that '^ of 
the increase of His government and peace 
there shall be no end. " They that fully trust 
Him will find Him able to carry on His 
shoulder, not only the government of their 
own life, but of all the things that concern 
them ; and the more perfectly we submit 
everything to His control, the more sweetly 
shall we have cause to rest and sing, 

" I leave His sovereign will 

To choose and 'to command. 
With wonder filled, I ever find 
How wise, how strong His hand ! " 

Wonderful nam^s ! Wonderful Saviour, 
Counselor and Prince ! Let u^ give Him the 
increase of the government and enter into 



26 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

His perfect peace, and in a little while we 
shall find ourselves in the glorious millennial 
kingdom of His everlasting peace, where 
the last enemy shall be destroyed, and 
universal nature shall at length be brought 
into perfect and everlasting accord with His 
love and will, where war shall cease, and 
strife shall disappear, and sin shall come no 
more, and sorrow shall have passed away, 
and Satan shall be cast out, and storm and 
tempest shall never darken its sunny skies; 
but universal peace, and everlasting love, 
like a golden chain, shall bind the heavens 
and the earth together in one long endless 
kingdom of felicity and i3eace. 






CHAPTER 11. 



THE ROCK OF ACES. 



" Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind 
is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in thee Trust 
ye in the Lord forever ; for in the Lord Jehovah is 
everlasting strength." Isaiah xxvi : 3, 4. 

^^HE literal translation of this beautiful 
f verse, as it will be found in the margin 
of our English Bible is, '' The Lord Jehovah 
is the Rock of Ages." This is the founda- 
ation of that beautiful hymn which is one 
that nine-tenths of the English-speaking 
Christians in the world would be sure to se- 
lect if asked for their six favorite hymns : 
a hymn without which any collection would 
be absolutely incomplete. The imagery is 
very familiar to every Bible reader. Rocks 
and mountains are associated with every 
important incident and epoch in the Bible. 
It was on Ararat that the new world began; 
on Moriah that the faith of Abraham was 



.28 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

perfected; on Sinai that the law was given; 
on Horeb that the Tabernacle was designed; 
on Nebo that the Land of Promise was un- 
veiled; on Zion that the capitol of Judah 
was fixed; on Moriah that the temple was 
reared; on Carmel that the nation of Is- 
rael was called to their covenant God; on 
Mount Hattin that Jesus preached His ser- 
mon; on Hermon that He was transfigured; 
on Calvary that He died, and from Oh vet 
that He ascended. It is not strange, there- 
fore, that the mountain and the rock have 
become favorite expressions of sacred things, 
for which their natural defences, their im- 
mutable and changeless features, their co- 
lossal strength, their lofty eminence, their 
wide reaching prospects of vision, and their 
beauty so specially fit them. 

Hundreds of times the metaphor is re- 
peated over and over again. ^'The Lord is 
our rock." ^' The rock of our heart. '^ ^' The 
rock of our salvation." ^'The rock that is 
higher than we." ^'The shadow of a great 
rock in a weary land;" and here, sublimest 



THE ROCK OF AGES. 29 

of them allj "The Eock of Ages.'' This is 
the only passage in the Scriptures where 
this particular phrase, so full of deep mean- 
ing and majesty, is found. 

Like some sublime mountain face; like 
yonder Profile mountain overhanging the 
Franconia valley, and looking hke a great 
colossal face on the earth below, alone in its 
grandeur; so this text is a mighty and iso- 
lated rock in which we can trace the face of 
Jesus, our Rock of Ages; and, as we git 
down under its mighty shadow, as we rest 
upon its velvet slopes, as we drink from the 
crystal fountains that flow from its side, we 
hear the sweet echo of our text : ' ^ Thou wilt 
keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is 
stayed on thee; because he trust eth in thee. 
Trust ye in the Lord for-ever: for the Lord 
Jehovah is the Rock of Ages." 

I. THE ROCK. 

Higher even than its fine natural sugges- 
tiveness is the perfect scriptural significance 
of this verse. It looks back to some of the 



30 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

most instructive and striking types of the 
Old Testament. 

1. It recalls the rock in Horeb, and speaks 
of Christ as our Saviour. "I would not 
have you ignorant," says the apostle, ad- 
dressing us New - Testament Christians, 
^Hhat our fathers did eat the same spiritual 
meat, and drink the same spiritual drink; 
for they drank of that rock that followed 
them, and that rock was Christ." Perish- 
ing with thirst, the Israelites were led by 
Moses to the face of the rock in Horeb. 
Then the law-giver lifted up his rod and 
smote the rock at God's command upon its 
naked face; and, lo! immediately it burst 
open, and from the cleft there poured a liv- 
ing stream, and through the camp it ran in 
rivulets and floods of living water, until the 
thirsty thousands drank and drank again, 
and gave their children and their cattle to 
drink until their thirst was fully satisfied; 
and they praised God for His great deliver- 
ance. 

This incident has been applied with full 



THE ROCK OF AGES. 31 

scriptural authority to the crucifixion of 
the Saviour. He, for us, was smitten by 
the rod of the Law-giver and Judge 
as our sacrifice and substitute, and from His 
pierced side there fiows for us the water of 
life, where we can drink of His boundless mer- 
cies. His forgiving love, His renewing grace 
and thankfully sing. 

Rock in Horeb, riven for me 

By the law's avenging rod, 
Flowing from thy side I see 

Streams of water and of blood. 
And I wash my crimson soul 

Whiter than the wool and snow, 
While the cleansing waters roll. 

And the living fountains flow. 

2. The Kock of Ages reminds us of the 
rock in Kadesh: the type of Christ, a fuller 
and more perfect Saviour. Forty years after 
the rock of Horeb was smitten, the camp of 
Israel came to Kadesh. The old story was 
repeated again. Thirsty and hungry they 
murmured instead of praying, and once 
again their law-giver led them to the rock. 
This time the command was different. He 
was not to smite the rock as before; but 



32 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

simply to speak to it, and the promise was 
given that the water should immediately 
gush forth, In a moment of haste and dis- 
obedience he exceeded his orders, and smote 
the rock repeatedly with words of irritation, 
perhaps of unbelief. Grod honored His 
promise by sending the water abundantly 
again; but He was grieved with His servant 
for disobeying the explicit command; and 
for this offence Moses was excluded from 
the promised land. The waters, however, 
came forth, and the people drank abun- 
dantly, and the river continued to flow 
through the desert. 

This is the type of the deeper fullness of 
Christ our Saviour, and of the infinite grace 
of the Holy Spirit, which is simply waiting 
the call of faith on the part of every believer. 
This is not the atonement which first opened 
the rock of salvation for us; but this is the 
deeper fullness of the Holy Ghost, sanctify- 
ing and satisfying the soul. 

The word ^ ^ Kadesh ' ' means righteousness, 
or holiness, and so this is the type of Christ 



The rock of ages. 38 

our Sanctifier and Satisfier. This does not 
teach us of the Holy Spirit procured and 
sent down from heaven through the finished 
work of Christ, but the Holy Spirit already 
given and simply waiting the call of faith to 
be received. We do not need now to smite 
the rock; to crucify Christ again, or to go 
through a desperate struggle and strain; but 
simply to look and live, to take and have, 
to speak the simple word of trust, '^Come, 
Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove," and lo! He 
answers quickly to our cry, and our prayer 
is changed to the song of praise: 

Rock of Kadesh, flowing still, 
From the Saviour glorified; 

All my empty being fill 
With thy Pentecostal tide. 

3. The Eock of Ages looks back to another 
beautiful picture: ^^They drank of the 
rock that followed them." What can this 
mean? *^ Following rock." Not that the 
rock moved through the desert, but the river 
that ran from the rock followed them 
through the desert. The rock followed them 
with its floods of life and cleansing. The 



34 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

Psalmist tells us the water ran in the desert 

like a river, and the historian tells us that 

when once in the desert they were perishing 

for want of water, they simply gathered in 

a Httle circle upon the burning sands, and 

with their staves dug a Httle well in the 

sand, and lifted up their voices to God in 

songs of praise; and lol immediately the 

waters sprung up from the depths below, 

and overflowed again, as at Horeb and Ka- 

desh, from the subterranean springs. So the 

Eock of Ages sends its hving fountains all 

along our way, and although the desert may 

be all around us and the wells may all seem 

dry, yet faith has only to make room and 

lift up the song of praise even in the hottest 

desert, and lo! immediately the waters will 

spring forth in abundance, and we shall sing 

again: 

Following rock, from day to day, . 

Sending forth on every hand 
Rivers all along the way, 

Underneath the desert sand. 
Open deep the living well. 

Where thy hidden fountains flow; 
Ever near thee let me dwell, 

As I through the desert go. 



THE ROCK OF AGES. 35 

4. But the Kock of Ages is also a shelter- 
ing rock. This is the rock of which the 
Psalmist cried, ^^Lead me to the rock that 
is higher than I." ^^He shall be as the 
shadow of a great rock in a weary land." A 
little rock only reflects upon us the more 
intensely the heat which it has absorbed; 
but the great rock drinks in the warm rays 
on one side, and on the other has a cooling 
shadow for the traveler who rests under its 
overshadowing cliffs. So, weak and selfish 
hearts only irritate us, and throw over us 
the reflection of their burdens; but Christ is 
the shadow of a great rock. Occupied every 
moment as He is with the cares of others, 
with the sorrows of a weeping world, with 
the myriad prayers that are every moment 
surging into His ears, with the dying cries 
and groans of sinking souls, with the de- 
spairing shrieks of the wretched ones that 
are every moment drifting into eternity. He 
is always at leisure for us. He is always at 
our call, and His whole heart is ever ready 
to comfort and rest us, as though there 



36 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

were no others in the wide universe but we 
requiring His sympathy and rest. Oh, the 
dehghtful peace; oh, the safe refuge; oh, the 
perfect security they enjoy who have found 
their home within the cleft of the Kock of 
Ages. 

Shadowing rock in weary lands, 

Let me rest beneath thy shade^, 
Traveling o'er the burning sands, 

Shelter my defenceless head. 
Covert from the tempest rude. 

Refuge from the raging tide. 
Fortress when by foes pursued. 

Let me in thy bosom hide. 

6. But the Eock of Ages is also a founda- 
tion rock. It is a place to build upon. It is 
the resting-place of faith and hope. There 
trust finds its full assurance, as it leans upon 
the promise, ^^ He that belie veth on the Son 
hath everlasting life." There the soul can 
struggle with self and sin as it reposes aU 
its weight upon the everlasting promise, 
^^The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us 
from aU sin." There hope anchors aU her 
cables, as she commits aU her destinies, her 
affections and her treasures to this imnaov-^ 



l^HE ROCK O'F AGES. SY 

able rock and cries, ^^I know whom I have 
believed, and I am persuaded that He is able 
to keep that which I have committed unto 
Him against that day." The mountains 
shall depart, and the hills shall be removed; 
but this rock shall stand. Oar most sub- 
stantial edifices shall crumble into dust; our 
oldest institutions shall vanish away; our 
securities and investments shall be ashes in 
the flames of a dissolving world; but the 
Eock of Ages will remain unshaken and 
immovable, and, standing upon it amid the 
awful roar of the last great convulsion, we 
shall indeed be able to say, ^ ^ God is our ref- 
uge and our strength; a very present help 
in trouble; therefore will we not fear though 
the earth be removed and though the moun- 
tains be carried into the midst of the sea; 
though the mountains shake with the swell- 
ings thereof. God is in the midst of her; she 
shall not be moved; God shall help her, and 
that right early." 

Rock of Ages, fixed and sure, 
Be my faith's foundation stone; 



88 THE NAMES OP JESUS. 

Hopes we built on thee endure, 
Stable as thy steadfast throne. 

While my heart on thee is stayed, 
Winds may howl and torrents pour; 

I shaU never be afraid, 
I am safe f orevermore. 

Such are some of the scriptural suggestions 
of this beautiful name. There are further 
dejDths of significance in it that no words 
can fully unfold. It recalls to us not only 
the past associations of the Bible, but the 
past associations of the people of the church 
of God, and our own experience. It is the 
rock of the past. How touching it is to 
travel in Bible lands, and, as you sit down 
at the well of Nazareth or Bethlehem, to 
think of the thousands who in every genera- 
tion have drunk of that fountain and rested at 
that well! There Abraham rested anddrank. 
There Jesus came as a little child with His 
mother. There crusaders, and pilgrims, and 
great travelers have quenched their thirst. 
How touching, how wonderful! It is the 
well of ages. This is the Eock of Ages. 

How it quickens one's pulses and moist- 






THE ROCK OF AGES. 39 

ens one's eyes to go through the tower of 
London, and read upon the walls the last 
messages of saints and martyrs — the verses 
of Scripture which they were leaning their 
head upon in view of the scaffold or the 
stake upon the morrow! How wonderful 
to take that twenty-third Psalm and trace 
its record as it has been written, not only in 
Bibles and letters bathed in love and the 
prayers of human hearts and heavenly 
anointings; but as it has been written on 
prison walls and dungeon floors! Oh, how 
sacredly one feels as they read its verses, 
that they are treading on storied ground, 
and that every syllable is marked with the 
footprints of some sufferer or victor that 
has gone before! 

And so, this Christ to whom we come has 
been the Christ of Ages. The comfort He 
gives us has been proved oft before. He is 
a tried stone; a sure foundation, and he that 
believeth on Him shall never be ashamed. 
He has been proved in temptation, in sick- 
ness, in sorrow, in death. Other generations 



40 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

have proved Him. Our fathers and mothers 
have proved Him. Our past trials have 
proved Him. 

"Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him, 
How I've proved Him o'er and o'er, 

Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, 
Oh, for grace to trust Him more." 

And, as the Eock of Ages, He will live 
through future ages. He covers all the fu- 
ture, and He is keeping all that can ever 
concern us fore verm ore. Oh, let us trust in 
the Lord Jehovah forever: for the Lord 
Jehovah is the Eock of Ages. 

n. THE REST. 

^' Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace 
whose mind is stayed on thee, because he 
trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the Lord for- 
ever. " 

This blessed rock is our place of rest. It 
is a place of perfect rest. '^ Peace! Peace! !" 
is the marginal and more beautiful transla- 
tion of this picture of the Christian's rest. 
There is a double peace. There is the peace 
of conscience that comes with justification, 



THE ROCK OF AGES. 41 

and the deeper rest of God that comes with 
HisindweUing,and the best of thisls that He 
keeps it. It is a peace that abides forever, 
and that keeps the heart in which it reigns: 
^^For the peace of God, which passeth all 
understanding, shall garrison your hearts 
and minds through Christ Jesus.'* 

But there are conditions on our part. The 
first is trust. This is the sweet Old Teste- 
ment word for faith — its child phase. It 
is not so much the intellectual act of believ- 
ing as the heart attitude of confiding and 
trusting. 

The next condition is staying. We not 
only trust, but we stay trusting. There is 
a passive rest, which is the result of indo- 
lence and inaction. It is is simply drifting. 
The Christian's rest is an active reliance on 
the loving and everlasting arms of God. 
This will illustrate it. Look at yonder yacht 
running before the breeze. Let that helm 
go lax, and lo! the sails flap in the winds, 
and the boat drifts and tosses with the tide, 
dashed about at the mercy of the billows, 



42 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

without any fixed course or steady poise. 
This is the attitude of many a Hfe — simply 
drifting, trustless, restless, tempest-tossed, 
and tending nowhere but to deeper unrest 
forevermore. But look at that yacht now, 
as the experienced seaman sits down at the 
stern and puts his strong and steady hand 
upon the helm, pressing hard against the 
wind. See how the sails quickly fill and 
lean against the wind, hke white-winged 
birds upon the air. Notice how the tossing 
vessel rights up and sets her prow against 
the waves in a steady course. Observe how 
the driftings and tossings cease, and the 
pitch and poise of the little ship are like the 
movements of a thing of hfe. Notice how 
swiftly she cuts her way through the raging 
waters, obedient to the joint impulse of the 
sail above and the helm astern. Notice how 
the very winds that almost cross her path, 
or blow in her very face, help her on her 
course. Beautiful picture of the soul that 
is stayed upon God ! The pressure of His 
providence, the very difficulties that confront 



THE ROCK OP ACES. 43 

US but quicken our steadfast trust, and we 
meet them with the firm hand and fixed 
will of humble, holy confidence in God. 
How the will springs into steadiness and 
power! How its tossings are stilled, and its 
whole movement is quieted, and intensely 
ahve and active, and yet intensely restful! 
It presses on, Hke that noble little ship, 
through wind and tide, in the will of God 
and the work of life. This is the picture of 
a soul stayed upon God. 

There is, further, a distinct reference here 
to the thoughts of the mind and their bear- 
ing upon the spirit of trust. It is the mind 
that is stayed upon God. Just translate this 
word ''stayed" ''stopped," and carry with 
you the idea of a suspending of your busy 
thoughts, and cares, and activities, and 
you will understand better the prophet's 
meaning. The rest of faith is usually hin- 
dered most by the restlessness of our ever 
busy thought. We get to reasoning, ques- 
tioning, wondering, fearing, looking forward 
to this emergency and that contingency. 



4:4: THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

and our soul is disquieted by a whirlwind of 
conflicting thoughts. God wants us to stop 
thinking. 

Not long ago a lady came to spend a week 
or two in our Home, to learn the secret of 
our deeper life in Christ. Her face was 
clouded with care, and her heart was dis- 
tracted with doubts, anxiety and fears. 
She was really in danger of losing her mind 
through spiritual unrest. She came to our 
Friday meeting to be anointed for healing 
of this terrible pressure upon her brain. 
As we knelt by her side, we asked her if she 
would promise the Lord to stop thinking 
for a week. She said she could not; that 
every instant she was hke one swept by a 
hurricane of troubled thoughts. We told 
her she could and she must, that she needed 
to set her will firmly in the strength of God, 
and refuse to think; like the ill birds that 
might beat their wings upon the window 
pane, but she need not open the window 
and let them in; like the wild billows that 
might surge against the ship, and even flood 



THE ROCK OF AGES. 45 

the deck, but she need not open the hatches 
and let them down into the cabin. She 
could simply stand guard at the door of her 
mind and refuse to receive these thoughts, 
to dwell upon them, to harbor them, to enter 
into sympathy with them. She could simply 
say, ^'I won't think," and as surely as she 
would do this, and hold steadily to this atti- 
tude, the habit would soon become estab- 
lished, and her thoughts would be controlled. 
But, she said, ''shall I give up my good 
thoughts ?" ''Yes," our answer was, "every- 
thing at present, for all are unrestful. Even 
your good thoughts are evil, and when God 
gets you fixed in the habit of stillness, then 
He will breathe into you His thoughts with- 
out an effort upon your part. " At length she 
reluctantly consented to make the promise 
and set her will like a flint, in the name of 
the Lord, against all thinking, and promised 
to learn to be perfectly still. Before the 
week had passed her whole face and heart 
were perfectly transfigured. " The peace of 
God that passeth all understanding," had 



46 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

taken possession of her soul, and she was 
rejoicing in the Lord and testifying to His 
victorious and keeping grace and power. 
Beloved, stay thy heart on God; not on 
thoughts nor feelings, but on that Presence 
that will possess you utterly, and fill you 
with that ^^ peace that passeth all under- 
standing," as you turn away from all else 
to Him alone. 

Trust and rest in Christ forever, 
Lean thy head upon His breast; 

Nothing from His love can sever 
Those who simply trust and rest. 

Trust and rest in hours of sorrow; 

Every wrong shall be redressed, 
In some happy, bright to-morrow, 

If you only trust and rest. 

Trust and rest when aU around thee 

Puts thy faith to sorest test; 
Let no fear nor foe confound thee, 

Wait for God and trust and rest. 

Trust and rest with heart abiding. 

Like a birdling in its nest. 
Underneath His feathers hiding; 

Fold thy wings and trust and rest. 

Trust and rest till gentle fingers 
Fold thy hands across thy breast, 

While the echo softly lingers. 
Everlasting trust and rest. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE FIEST AND THE LAST. 



" I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the 
end, the first and the last." Rev. xxii : 13. 

/DTS WE think of the friends of Hfe, how 
^"'^ few there are that were Knked with 
our earhest associations and memories! 
There was a period when every friendship 
began, and many of those we love the best we 
only knew for the first time a Httle while ago. 
But here a Friend addresses us who was 
before all other friends, who loved us long 
before we knew the love of brother, or 
even mother; long before even we were 
conscious of our own existence. '^ The Lord 
hath appeared of old unto me, saying, ' Yea, 
I have loved thee with an everlasting love.' " 
Jesus is indeed the First. 

And then, how many of those that were 
the first in our life are not the last ? The 



48 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

very mother on whose sweet face our eyes 
gazed before they recognized any earthly 
countenance, has long since passed from 
our ^iew. But few of the friends of youth 
remain, and how many of the fondest at- 
tachments of hfe have been like rivers that 
run into the desert and are lost amid the 
sands ; but here we have One who will be 
there at the close, who will remain when 
all others have passed away ; for Jesus is 
the Last. 

Oh ! amid the passing years, and the pass- 
ing forms of loved ones, and the changing 
scenes of liff^; how sweet it is to know that 
Jesus is the First and the Last ! Let us gather 
up by the help of the Holy Grhost, some of the 
precious lessons of this wonderful name that 
covers all the present and the future. 

I. THE FIRST. 

1. This expresses the eternal pre-existence 
of Christ. We find Him constantly declar- 
ing this in His own addresses in the Gospel 
of John. ^^He was before me," is the wit- 



THE FIRST AND THE LAST. 49 

ness of John to Him. ^^I came forth from 
the Father and am come into the world," is 
His own testimony. ^ ' Before Abraham was, 
I am." Even in the Old Testament we have 
some sublime pictures of the eternal Christ. 
"His name shall be the Everlasting Father 
(or the Father of Eternity), " is Isaiah's pic- 
ture. "His goings forth have been of old, 
even from everlasting," is Micah's picture. 
"The Lord possessed me in the beginning of 
His way, before His works of old I was es- 
tablished from everlasting, from the begin- 
ning, or ever the earth was, when there were 
no depths, I was brought forth. When there 
were no fountains abounding with water, 
before the mountains were settled, before 
the hills, was I brought forth. When He 
prepared the heavens I was there. When 
He set a compass upon the face of the deep, 
then I was by Him as one brought up with 
Him, and I was daily His delight ; rejoicing 
always before Him ; rejoicing in the habit- 
able parts of His earth, and my delights were 
with the sons of men." This is Solomon's 



60 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

inspired picture of the eternal Logos, and 
His ancient love to the world, and the men 
that He was coming in the fullness of the 
ages to redeem. 

2. This expresses His pre-eminence. This 
also is most clearly taught by the Holy Ghost 
in the Scriptures, and claimed by Christ Him- 
self. ^' That in all things He might have the 
pre-eminence," is the Father's purpose re- 
garding His dear Son, for His is the pre-emi- 
nence of deity. He is higher than all men, 
higher than all angels; very God of very God; 
the brightness of the Father's glory, the 
express image of His person, the King of 
kings and Lord of lords. There is no doubt 
that this is what He claimed Himself, and 
for this claim His life was threatened again 
and again by the Jews, and taken at last in 
His final judgment and crucifixion. ^'He 
ought to die, because He has made Himself 
the Son of God," was their charge. The 
hands into which we commit our souls are 
divine and infinite hands. The ransom which 
has been paid for our sin is of the infinite 



THE FIRST AND THE LAST. 51 

value of deity. The grace that is sufficient 
for our full salvation is the grace of the in- 
finite God. The kinship to which He has 
raised us is nothing less than to be partakers 
of the divine nature^ and sons and heirs of 
God, and joint heirs with Christ. Let us not 
fear to bring forth every diadem and crown 
Him Lord of all. 

3. This expresses His relation to the work 
of creation and j^i'ovidence. This thought 
is expressed by the apostle Paul in his 
epistle to the Colossians in these strong and 
significant words: "For by Him were all 
things created that are in heaven, and that 
are in earth, visible and invisible, whether 
they be thrones or dominions, or principali- 
ties or powers; all things were created by 
Him and for Him; and He is above all 
things, and by Him all things consist." 
This expresses Christ's relation to the nat- 
ural creation, and to the affairs of Provi- 
dence. It was through His hand that the 
material universe was framed, and it is by 
His constant superintendence that the whole 



62 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

machinery of Providence is carried on. By 
Him all things consist, or, Hterally, '^hang 
together." He is the cohesive force that 
holds the whole universe in order and har- 
mony. All power is given to Him in heaven 
and in earth. Like the Eoman centurion, 
all beings and forces are at the service of His 
will, and He can say to this one, ^^Go," and 
he goeth, or to this one, "Come," and he 
Cometh, and to all things, "Do this," and 
they do it. 

To Him we ascribe all the sublime de- 
scriptions which Jehovah gives us in the Old 
Testament of His sovereign power and glory. 
Every robe of majesty and might will fit the 
Son of God as perfectly as the Father, for it 
is He that doeth according to His will in the 
armies of heaven and among the inhabitants 
of the earth, and none can stay His hand 
from working, or say, "What doest thou ?" 
In the midst of the throne ever sits the en- 
throned Lamb, while all angels and all cre- 
ation sing in adoring reverence and love, 
"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to 



THE FIRST AND THE LAST. 53 

receive power and riches and wisdom, and 
strength and honor, and glory and bless- 
ing. Blessing and honor and glory and 
power be unto Him that sitteth upon the 
throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and 
ever." This is our Christ: the first and the 
last. 

4. This expresses also His relation to the 
Bible. Christ is first in these sacred pages. 
The one object of the Holy Scriptures is to 
reveal the person and portrait of Jesus. This 
is the key to its interpretation. This is the 
glory of its pages — Jesus in the story of cre- 
ation, already planning the new creation ; 
Jesus supreme above the ruins of the fall ; 
Jesus in the ark, the rainbow and the dove ; 
Jesus in the sacrifice on Mount Moriah, the 
ladder of Jacob, and the story of Joseph ; 
Jesus in the Paschal lamb, the desert manna, 
the smitten rock, the pillar-cloud, the smok- 
ing sacrifice, the fragrant incense, the suf- 
fering scape-goat, the enrobed priest, the 
golden candlestick, the sacred ark, the 
sprinkled mercy seat, the hovering cherubim^ 



54 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

the awful Shekinah, the glorious tabernacle 
and all its ministries and furniture; Jesus in 
the land of promise, in the temple of Solo- 
mon, in the story of Joshua, the Psalms of 
David, the throne of Solomon, the visions of 
Isaiah, and the panorama of ancient proph- 
ecy as it unfolds toward the advent, the 
manger, the cross and the throne ; Jesus in 
the Apostles ; Jesus in the Apocalypse. The 
testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. 
The face of Jesus can be traced hke water 
lines in fine paper back of every page, for 
He is the Alpha and the Omega: the first 
and the last of this Holy Book. 

6. This expresses the relation of Jesus 
Christ to redemption. He is the first in the 
plan of salvation. Long ago He was heard 
exclaiming, ^^Lo, I come; I delight to do thy 
will, God; mine ear hast thou bored." It 
has aU been accomplished through Him, and 
His glory is aU to return to Him, and He for 
evermore to stand as the centre and head of 
God's grandest work — the restoration of a 
ruined race, the salvation of sinful men. 



THE FIRST AND THE LAST. 55 

Christ is not only first in redemption : He is 
all. This wine press He hath trodden alone. 
None can share with Him this glory. His 
was all the cost. His alone the honor shall 
ever be. No name is so sublime in heaven 
as the Lamb. No song so loud as that which 
celebrates His redeeming love, and therefore 
all that receive this great redemption must 
give Jesus the supreme glory, or they cannot 
share it. 

6. This expresses His relation to our indi- 
vidual salvation, for every soul must acknowl- 
edge Jesus as the first. ^ ^ Ye have not chosen 
me, but I have chosen you," He tells us. The 
first desire to come to Him came from Him. 
The very hunger that longed for Him was 
His grace beginning to enter our hearts. He 
has loved us with an everlasting love, and, 
therefore, with loving-kindness has he drawn 
us. Not only has He pardon for us when we 
repent; but is exalted to give repentance to 
Israel and the remission of their sins. Not 
only will He fulfill our earnest prayers ; 
but He maketh intercession within us with 



56 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

groanings which cannot be uttered. Not 
only will He meet us in blessing if we will 
come to Him; but He will even take our will 
and work in us both to will and to do His 
good pleasure. His arms reach down to us 
at the lowest depth. His grace is before- 
hand in all its manifestations. Christ will 
take us at the very alphabet of Christian hf e, 
and from the very beginning will count us 
His disciples, and then will set us free. Oh, 
let us fully learn this precious truth, and 
always take Him for the very thing we need 
the most and the first, and even the very 
thing for which we ourselves are responsible, 
and yet insufficient; and He will not only do 
His glorious part, but He will enable us to 
do ours. 

7. This expresses the relation of Christ to 
our Christian hf e and work. This is the true 
aim of a consecrated hfe — to make Jesus 
first. Let us give Him the first place in our 
heart, in our thoughts, in our aims and 
motives, in our plans, in our affections, 
friendships, occupations, our business, our 



THE FIRST AND THE LAST. 5Y 

pleasures, our families, and our whole exist- 
ence. Let us come to Him first for help 
always. Let us bring to Him the very first 
beginnings of temptation. Let us catch the 
lions and the dragons while they are young, 
and so shall we trample them under foot; and 
we shall never see any old lions if we do so 
without fail, for they will all be disposed of 
before they have time to grow formidable. 
Let us take to Him the very merest thing 
that needs help, whether it be for soul or 
body, for secular business or sacred experi- 
ences. Jesus first. Let this ever be our 
simple watchword, and life's tangles will all 
be unravelled, nay, will not have time to 
grow serious, and so the touchstone which 
will settle every question of perplexity and 
duty will be Jesus first. Shall I do this ? 
Shall I please this person or Him ? Shall it 
be something else, or shall it be Jesus first ? 
Oh, how this will consecrate, elevate and 
glorify our life, and enthrone Him and us 
with Him, in a kingdom of constant peace 
and victory! Beloved, shall we bring the 



58 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

crowns and lay them at His feet, and write 
on everything: ''Henceforth, Jesus first." 

II. JESUS : THE LAST. 

1. This imphes the eternal existence of 
Jesus. He is, as He himself expressed it, 
alive for evermore ; or, as the old prophet 
put it still more sublimely, the Father of 
eternity. It is glorious to have one that 
covers aU the future, and has in His hand 
the scroll of every destiny and the control of 
every future event. The Lamb in the midst 
of the throne holds the sealed book of all our 
destinies, and for evermore can ^x every 
event of our existence. No matter what is 
coming, Jesus is coming with it. Though it 
be trial, temptation, or death, He "will be 
there. The heavens and the earth shall pass 
away; but He will remain. The friends we 
have known will disappear ; but He will 
abide. We wiU change; but He is the same 
yesterday, to-day, and forever. The things 
we commit to Him are committed against 
that day. The interests that He is guarding 



THE FIRST AND THE LAST. 69 

are safe forever. Beyond the smiling and 
the weeping ; beyond the parting and the 
meeting, He stands in eternity yonder, with 
our title and our crown safe in His keeping. 
How often have we felt that the present 
sorrow or even death were nothing if it were 
all safe beyond, if it would be all safe at last! 
Blessed be His name ! He is the last, and His 
mighty works reach beyond all present vi- 
cissitudes, and guard our treasures and trusts 
for evermore. The things He gives us will 
stand. The things that are linked with Him 
are eternal. 

There is One amid all changes 

Who standeth ever fast ; 
One who covers all the future, 

The present and the past ; 
Jesus is the Rock of Ages, 

The first and the last. 

Jesus is the first ; 

Jesus is the last ; 
Trust to Him thy future, 

Give Him all thy past ; 
Jesus is the Rock of Ages, 

The first and the last. 

2. Christ^will finish His^work in us, and 
carry to glorious consummation all that He 



60 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

begins. Therefore, He is called the author 
and finisher of our faith. He who hath be- 
gun a good work within you will complete 
it unto the day of Christ. ^'The Lord will 
perfect that which concerneth me." ^^They 
who hear His voice," He says, '' shall never 
perish, nor shall any one pluck them out of 
my hand." He takes us forever, and He will 
not leave us until He has done all that He 
has spoken to us of. He never leads His 
flock out to desert them in the hour of need. 
He never leads us out into the difftcult enter- 
prise, without promising to stand by us and 
crown our work with success. He says of 
every true enterprise begun in His name and 
at His bidding, "The hands of Zerubbabel 
have laid the foundations of this house, his 
hands also shall finish it, and they shall know 
that the Lord of Hosts hath sent me unto 
you." 

3. Christ is not only the finisher of our 
life and work; but Christ himself is the end 
and substance of all things, and when we 
are done with things and people and see Him 



THE FIRST AND THE LAST. 61 

as He is^ we shall find that His heart was 
the fountain of all love, His smile the sub- 
stance of all joy, His life the life of all life, 
Himself the first and the last of everything, 
and we shall have nothing that is not part 
of Him and linked with Him. Every face 
we see shall simply reflect His beauty. 
Every joy we shall feel shall be but a radi- 
ation from His heart. Every glory we shall 
wear shall be but a reflection of His holiness. 
Every throb of our immortal life shall be but 
a pulsation of His being, and Christ shall be 
all, and in all, and we shall have reached the 
last line of the old chorus, ^^ Everything in 
Jesus, and Jesus in everything." So let us 
step out into another year, writing over 
every day and hour and moment, ^^ Jesus 
first," and we shall find surely that Jesus is 
the last. 



CHAPTER IV. 



CHRIST TBE LIVING WAY. 



"Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter 
into the hoHest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and 
living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through 
the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and having an 
high priest over the house of God; let us draw near 
with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having 
our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and 
our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold 
fast the profession of our faith without wavering 
(for He is faithful that promised); and let us con- 
sider one another to provoke unto love and good 
works." Heb. x: 16-24. 

fHESE profound words tell us of five 
things : two things which we liave, and 
three things which we are to do. 

I. THE THINGS WE HAVE. 

1. We have boldness to enter into the 
holiest by the blood of Jesus. We see be- 
fore us a model of the ancient Tabernacle 
— God's most perfect type of Christ and 
our Christian life. Entering the gate and 



CHRIST THE LIVING WAY. 63 

the court, we are beside the altar of sacrifice 
and the laver of cleansing, which tell us of 
Christ's atonement for our sins, and the 
Holy Spirit's cleansing work in our hearts. 
Passing still further in we come to the Holy 
Place, through the door; and the candle- 
stick, the table of shew bread, and the 
altar of incense proclaim to us in symbol, 
the illumination of the Holy Spirit in the 
heart where He dwells, the living bread 
with which Jesus nourishes those who 
abide in Him, the sweet communion* with 
God which that altar and its incense set 
forth, and all that is meant by abiding in 
the secret place of the Most High, and 
dwelling in intimate fellowship with Jesus. 
Still further in stands the Holy of Holies, 
separated only by the veil, and entered only 
by the High Priest once a year on the 
Great Day of Atonement. It is the symbol 
of the presence and glory of God, of the 
heavenly world and of the access into it, 
which even here we may enjoy in the sweet 
fellowship of Jesus. All this imagery is 



64 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

called up by the text. Dean Alford trans- 
lates the phrase, ^^Holy Places," and so 
makes it mean all the chambers of the 
Tabernacle, even the court, and including 
the Holy of Holies. Thus it would express 
all the fullness of our spiritual privileges in 
Christ — the life in heavenly places in Christ 
Jesus, as the apostle calls it in the Epistle to 
the Ephesians. Specially, however, it refers 
to the inner chamber, and expresses our 
com]3lete and unobstructed access to all the 
fullness of God. 

Had you stood in that Tabernacle three 
thousand years ago, you would have seen 
the view of that inner chamber obscured by 
the heavy veil covered with its symbolical 
embroideries which hung between: this veil 
and its embroideries speaking of Judaism 
and its types, which as yet obstructed the 
full view of the heavenly world, and yet in 
a measure foreshadowed them. Had you 
stood in that Tabernacle, however, on the 
Great Day of Atonement, you would have 
seen a sohtary man, robed in priestly gar- 



CHRIST THE LIVING WAY. 65 

merits, pass through that veil with a censer 
full of burning coals and a bunch of hyssop 
saturated with sacrificial blood, and for a 
moment stand within that holiest place and 
sprinkle that altar with the blood while he 
made intercession for the waiting congre- 
gation outside; and then you would have 
seen him retire with solemn awe and close 
the veil behind him, and enter no more 
until the year was ended. 

All this received its literal fulfillment on 
that day when, outside the eastern gate of 
Jerusalem, the Son of God died on Calvary, 
and His mortal flesh was rent by the death- 
stroke. Suddenly the watchers in the tem- 
ple beheld that mighty veil, that hung so 
high that human hands could not have 
reached it, rent asunder from top to bottom, 
proclaiming that from henceforth the way 
to the holiest of all was opened, and that 
there was no barrier between the believing 
sinner and the holy God. This is indeed 
true. 

The way is opened to us to the altar of 



66 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

atonement for full and complete forgiveness, 
to the laver of cleansing for the washing of 
regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy 
Ghost, to the golden candlestick for the 
fullness of the Holy Spirit's light and teach- 
ing, to the table of shew bread for the hving 
bread which will sustain us in our spiritual 
and physical being, to the altar of incense 
for Christ's own intercession for us, and 
constant access ourselves for communion 
with God. 

Nay, more, the ark of the covenant, guard- 
ing and keeping for us God's holy law tells 
us of our access to complete sanctification in 
Christ, and the blood of sprinkling that keeps 
us ever accepted in His sight, nay, even we 
may come to the very Shekinah of His pres- 
ence to walk ever in the light of His coun- 
tenance and dwell in the bosom of His love. 
Not timidly and with a sense of unworthi- 
ness are we to walk, but boldly, knowing 
that we are unworthy, but that Jesus Christ 
has purchased for us all these redemption 
rights, and that we may fully claim them 



CHRIST THE LIVING WAY. . 67 

without doubt nor fear. We have boldness 
by the blood of Jesus. We can take as much 
as that is worth. We were unworthy, but 
all has been covered by His satisfaction. We 
could not have come ourselves, but He has 
become our living way. We could not have 
put that veil aside, but God rent it from top 
to bottom through the death of His dear 
Son, and our crucifixion with Him, ''for the 
veil is His flesh." 

In His earthly body He represented our 
sinful humanity, and was bearing in His 
own person all the habihties of lost men, and 
was really counted a sinner in the eye of the 
law of God. That flesh stood between us and 
God, therefore it had to die in place of the 
guilty race, and when Christ's flesh was 
crucified on Calvary, it was the same as if 
the guilty race had been judged and slain. 
The obstruction was immediately removed, 
and the way for access into the presence of 
God was opened. 

There is a very deep spiritual application 
in all this for us. Before the holy of holies 



68 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

can be fully opened to our hearts, and we can 
enter into the immediate presence and com- 
munion of God, the veil upon our hearts 
must rend asunder, and this comes as it came 
on Calvary — by the death of our flesh. It is 
when we yield our own natural self to God 
to die, and He slays us by the power of His 
Spirit, that the obstruction to our commu- 
nion with God is removed and we enter into 
its deeper fullness. The greatest hindrance 
to our peace and victory is the flesh. When- 
ever the consciousness of self rises vividly 
before you, and you become absorbed in 
your own troubles, cares, rights or wrongs, 
you at once lose communion with God, and 
a cloud of darkness falls over your spirit. 

There is really nothing else that hurts or 
hinders us but this heavy weight of evil, 
this seed of Satan, this embodiment of the 
inmost essence of sin, this great mimic and 
antagonism of God, whose place it usurps, 
whose throne it claims, whose perogatives 
it dares to monopolize. We can never rend 
it asunder, but the Holy Spirit can. It dies 



CHRIST THE LIVING WAY. 69 

only on the cross of Jesus and on the pierced 
bosom of His love, under the fire of His 
descending Spirit. Bring it to Him, give 
Him the right to slay it, reckon it dead, and 
then the veil will rend asunder, the Holy of 
Holies will open wide, the light of the She- 
kinah will shine through all the house of 
God, and the glory of heaven shall be re- 
vealed in your heart and life, and your 
inmost being become like that ancient Tab- 
ernacle when illuminated by the golden 
candlestick and the Shekinah of God's visible 
presence. 

2. We have a High Priest over the house 
of God. Not only have we a home to shelter 
us, but we have an Elder Brother to welcome 
and love us. 

The ministry of the ancient high priest 
was very important. It was he that opened 
the way into the holiest, and made recon- 
ciliation for the sins of the people. So our 
great High Priest has opened for us the way, 
and keeps it ever open, ^^and ever liveth to 
make intercession for us." It is His busi- 



To THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

ness to settle for us the question of our sins, 
and keep us cleansed from their power, and 
saved from their effects. The time to go to 
Him is not when you feel strong in your 
victories, but when baffled, defeated, and 
crushed by temptation and conscious un- 
worthiness. He that washed the disciples' 
feet still stands in the heavenly court girded 
with the towel of priestly service, and with 
open bosom ready to pour His precious blood 
over all your stains. Let us, therefore, come 
boldly to the throne of grace, even to obtain 
mercy, as well as to find grace to help in 
time of need. 

The ancient priest also ministered to the 
suffering and the sick. It was his business 
to inspect the leper, to offer the sacrifices 
for his cleansing, to pronounce him clean; 
and so our great High Priest is also our 
great Physician, and heals all our diseases, 
comforts all our sorrows, and binds up our 
broken hearts. He is able to be touched 
with the feelings of our infirmities, for He 
was in all points tempted hke as we are, 
yet without sin. 



CHRIST THE LIVING WAY. 7l 

Also, He bore upon His shoulders, and 
upon His breast in jewelled letters, the 
names of Israel's tribes, and so Christ 
bears us upon the shoulders of His strength 
and the bosom of His love-in unceasing 
faithfulness and unfailing strength. He 
presents our prayers before the throne with 
acceptance to His Father and ours. He 
keeps our relations with God always right. 
He remembers us in constant intercession, 
even when we ourselves may not know our 
need, nor what to pray for as we ought. 

In a word, He superintends, and carries 
on the entire business of our spiritual life, 
and is for us the author and finisher of our 
faith. We have such a High Priest. He 
is there in our behalf. He has been ap- 
pointed by His Father for this great trust. 
He has given Himself to us for this great 
business. We have accepted Him as such. 
He belongs to us. Let us make use of this 
glorious opportunity, and ' ' seeing we have 
an High Priest, who has passed into the 
heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold 



72 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

fast our profession, and let us come boldly 
up to the throne of grace, that we may 
obtain mercy, and find grace to help in 
time of need." 

II. WHAT WE SHOULD DO. 

1. Let us draw near. This is to say, let 
us not live a distant, cold, and timid life, 
but let us enter into all the fullness of our 
privileges, and live in the intimate friend- 
ship of our Saviour. Let us come with a 
single purpose to please and obey Him with 
a true heart, and an honest single aim. 
Let us come in full assurance of faith, not 
timidly dreading a reproof nor a blow but, 
sweetly knowing that we are welcome, and 
like a happy child pressing right up into the 
bosom of our Father. And even if we are 
conscious of unworthiness, let us come 
with a heart sprinkled from an evil con- 
science, and bodies washed with pure 
water. There is cleansing for us, if we 
have erred, in that precious blood, and that 
renewing Spirit's grace, and not even our 



CHRIST THE LIVING WAY. 1Z 

imperfections should keep us back from 
communion with God and the joy of His 
presence. 

It is a very beautiful provision of the 
olden time that the blemished priest might 
not minister at the altar, but he may eat of 
the priestly bread. A broken limb or a 
crooked joint disqualified him from stand- 
ing at the altar as an officiating priest, but 
not from entering the Holy place, and 
feeding upon the provisions for the priest- 
hood. Beautiful token that Christ's most 
imperfect children are welcome to His love, 
and grace, and may ever draw near for 
His help and comfort, and while this must 
not encourage weakness, yet let it ever 
keep from discouragements, and constrain 
us to draw still nearer to His breast, and so 
to live that we shall ever please Him, and 
not have sin to bring Him, but grateful love 
and holy service. 

2. ^'Let us hold fast the profession of 
our faith, without wavering, for He is 
faithful that promised;'' or rather, let us 



74: THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

hold fast the faith, or hope which we have 
professed. This hope of ours and this faith 
refer to the great eternal goal of faith 
and hope — our complete salvation through 
Christ Jesus. But it also applies to every' 
confidence which God has given to us, and 
every promise which He has permitted us 
to claim. Let us stand steadfastly in the 
trust which He has given us, and let us do 
so without a faltering movement nor a 
trembling fibre. Let us stand unshaken in 
our confidence, and let us do so because He 
stands firmly at the other end. The cable 
yonder is fastened round the throne. Let 
it be fastened around our hearts in in- 
flexible and immovable security, and thus 
standing upon His promises and holding 
fast our confidence, He is not hindered on 
His side in fulfilling all His purposes of 
blessing. 

3. ^^ Let us consider one another to pro- 
voke unto love and to good works." Such 
glorious privileges should make us unself- 
ish and devoted, and find expression in lives 



CHRIST THE LIVING WAY. 75 

of loving service. As travelers ascending 
dangerous mountains tie their bodies to- 
gether with strong cords, so that if one 
should fall the others will support him ; so 
God has linked our hearts and lives together 
by innumerable cords of sympathy, suffer- 
ing and mutual influence; and if one mem- 
ber suffers all suffer. Particularly are we, 
who have entered into the holiest and are 
walking into the inner presence of God, ex- 
pected to be loving, and cheerful, and help- 
ful to one another, and to bear the burdens 
of the weak and suffering. The best evi- 
dence you can give that you are a strong 
Christian is to bear the infirmities of the 
weak, and not to please yourself, ^^even as 
Christ pleased not Himself; but, as it is 
written, the reproaches of them that re- 
proach thee fall on me." Therefore let us 
consider one another, hold up each other, 
bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the 
law of Christ. Let us carry one another in 
the sweet ministry of prayer. Let us be pa- 
tient with each other. Let us be very con- 



76 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

siderate of each other's faults and failings, 
and let us prove that we have indeed a 
deeper life and a fuller blessing, by pouring 
it out abundantly on those v^ho lack. 

Such, then, beloved, are our privileges and 
responsibilities. Let us more fully possess 
the former, and more faithfully shall we 
perform the latter. More intimately let us 
draw near, more constantly let us dwell in 
the secret of His presence, and more faith- 
fully shall we fulfill our duties to others in 
every earthly relationship, and let us do this 
so much the more as you see the day ap- 
proaching. Our Lord is coming ere long, and 
this blessed hope, if fully reahzed, will make 
all our trials, irritations and provocations 
seem light and small in comparison with the 
one great object of winning His approval 
and wearing the crown which He will give 
to Him that overcomes. 



CHAPTER V. 



CHRIST OUR SURETY. 



"He is the surety of a better covenant, which was 
established upon better promises." 

"For all the promises of Grod in Him are yea, and 
in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us." 

"He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, 
ordered in all things, and sure." 

/COVENANTS are more common in Ori- 
ental countries, and more sacred than 
in our modern life. The Arab chief will 
guard with his life the person with whom 
he has made the covenant of bread and salt. 
God has accommodated Himself to human 
speech and customs by reveahng the glori- 
ous plan of mercy to us under the figure of 
a covenant, and has bound Himself to us by 
bonds so secure and sacred that they are an 
anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, 
if we have fled for refuge to the hope set be- 
fore us in the gospel. 



78 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

I. THE COVENANT OF REDEMPTION. 

This takes us away back to the ages be- 
fore the fall, and the revelation of God's 
mercy. In the counsels of eternity the cov- 
enant was made between the Father and the 
Son. Then it was that foreseeing the ruin 
that was to come upon the human race 
through the awful power of sin, God the Fa- 
ther entered into a covenant with His be- 
loved Son, guaranteeing to Him, on condition 
that He should assume the liabilities and 
the nature of the fallen race, to give to Him 
for them a complete salvation. On the part 
of Christ it was necessary that He should 
take the sinner's place, that He should 
stoop from His high and exalted position 
and become, not only a man, but a despised 
and rejected man, a man of sorrows, should 
die upon the cross as a sacrifice for sin, 
should bear the taunts and cruelties of man, 
the pains of death, the assaults and insults 
of the devil and all his legions, should go 
down into the gloomy regions of the dead ; 
and then should come forth, and for ages 



CHRIST OUR SURETY. 79 

sit upon the throne of intercession as a 
merciful High Priest, bearing the burdens 
of His people, making continual intercession 
for them, enduring their provocations, in- 
firmities and failures, and guarding them 
with unceasing love, until His work might 
be completed in all their lives. On the Fa- 
ther's part. He promised on account of the 
fulfillment of these conditions, He should 
give eternal life to all that received His Son, 
and freely forgive and justify them from all 
their transgressions, and create within them 
a new heart, and give them His Holy Spirit, 
should sanctify them and perfect them in hoh- 
ness, should supply to them all needed grace, 
power, love, and blessing, should accept 
them as the sons of God, and make them the 
heirs of His glory, and partakers of the di- 
vine nature, and at last raise them from the 
dead, and glorify them with Jesus in the 
ages to come, with a place of honor and 
blessing higher than Adam ever knew, 
higher than angels shall ever possess, and 
more than compensating for all the evils and 



80 THE NAMES OP JESUS. 

miseries of the fall. This covenant Jesus 
Christ accepted. ''Lo, I come!" was His 
glad answer, " I delight to do thy will, oh, 
my God: yea, thy law is in my heart." And 
so He came, and lived and loved, and died, 
and at last could say, in His closing prayer, 
as He committed His work to the Father, 
'^ I have finished the work that thou gavest 
me to do; and on the cross could shout, '^It 
is finished." 

Then the Father put His seal upon the fin- 
ished work by raising Him from the dead, 
and so declaring forever that the covenant 
had been fulfilled, the conditions met, and 
the great redemption completed. Christ's 
ascension from the tomb was the seal of 
this; the coming of the Holy Ghost on the 
day of Pentecost was a second seal; the con- 
version of every believer since has been a 
further seal that the covenant is ratified, 
and forever holds fast. Every answer to 
prayer in the name of Jesus, every blessing 
that comes to our spiritual life, is an echo 
from the cross repeating, ^'It is finished;" 



CHRIST OUR SURETY. 81 

and we know that the covenant is fulfilled, 
and, " in all things ordered and sure." This 
is the ground of our salvation. It is not be- 
cause we have a covenant with God, but Je- 
sus has; and we simply accept Him, and we 
come into His covenant, for He could say to 
the Father, ^^Thou hast given Him power 
over all flesh that He should give eternal life 
to as many as thou hast given Him;" and 
then He could add, ^^Keep through thine 
own name those whom thou hast given me, 
that they may be as one, even as we are." 
Our salvation, therefore, is wholly depen- 
dent upon our accepting Jesus, and this 
brings to us all the promises of the coven- 
ant that He has ratified and fulfilled. There, 
fore, '' All the promises of God in Him are 
yea, and in Him Amen." Therefore, to the 
last moment of our life, we have no per- 
sonal claim upon God for anything. Every- 
thing we receive is the infinite mercy of God 
in Christ and for His sake; and to the last 
breath of life, we shall never receive any- 
thing that is not the pure undeserved mercy 






82 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

of God for His sake. How very simple this 
makes salvation! How very strong our con- 
summation in Christ? How very sacred our 
hope! How mighty the anchor that holds 
us in the storm of temptation, and doubt, 
and fear! 

II. THE REVELATION OF GOD'S COVENANT. 

The law of Moses was not the covenant of 
God which He designed to be His perma- 
nent bond of union with His people. It was 
simply a temporary revelation, similar to 
the covenant of works made at the creation 
of man, which God knew they would not 
keep, and which was designed, not to save 
men, nor to sanctify them, but to reveal to 
them their sin, and show them the need of a 
higher covenant of grace and mercy in 
Christ, even the covenant of grace which 
Christ has brought in. 

The first full revelation of God's covenant 
of grace was made to Abraham; and the cov- 
enant of Abraham still holds good for all 
believers. This was not intended for the 



CHRIST OUR SURETY. 83 

Jewish people exclusively, but it was de- 
signed to include all the children of faith, of 
whom Abraham was the spiritual father. 
This the apostle clearly teaches us in the 
epistle to the Galatians, where he tells us 
that ^'they which be of faith, the same are 
the children of Abraham. And the scripture, 
foreseeing that God would justify the hea- 
then through faith, preached the gospel unto 
Abraham, saying. In thee all nations shall 
be blessed. So, then, they which be of faith 
are blessed with faithful Abraham." 

The essence of the covenant with Abra- 
ham was the promise of the seed, and this 
was Christ, so that Abraham's covenant 
was just that Jesus was to come and do all 
things in accordance with the eternal cove- 
nant of redemption, of which we have pre- 
viously spoken. This covenant, Abraham 
received in the simplest way by naked faith, 
but he did not do anything to deserve it. He 
just believed God. God came to him with 
a revelation of His promise and mercy, and 
Abraham accepted it like a child and began 



84 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

to act accordingly, and his life was simply 
one of trust and trustful obedience, and for 
this, Grod blessed him with His friendship and 
made him father of all who have since been 
received into that covenant friendship. 

Much more fully in the later scriptures do 
we find this covenant unfolding. Particu- 
larly in the writings of Jeremiah does God 
reveal to His people, in the darkest hour of 
their sin and suffering. His future plans of 
grace and mercy. '' Behold the days come," 
we read in Jer. xxxi: 31, ^Hhat I will make 
a new covenant with the house of Israel, and 
with the house of Judah; not according to 
the covenant that I made with their fathers, 
in the day that I took them by the hand 
to bring them out of the land of Egypt; 
which my covenant they brake, although I 
was an husband to them, saith the Lord. 
But this shall be the covenant that I shall 
make with the house of Israel; After those 
days, saith the Lord, I wiU put my law in 
their inward parts, and will write it in their 
hearts; and will be their God, and they 



CHRIST OUR SURETY. 85 

shall be my people. And they shall teach 
no more every man his neighbor, and every 
man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: 
for they shall all know me, from the least of 
them to the greatest of them, salth the Lord; 
for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will 
remember their sin no more." 

That this is the covenant of the gospel is 
perfectly certain from the fact that in the 
epistle to the Hebrews it is twice quoted by 
the Holy Ghost as the rule of God's dealings 
with His people to-day, and as the bond into 
which He brings them in Jesus Christ, who 
is the surety of this better covenant estab- 
lished upon better promises. 

The promises of this covenant are very 
wonderful. The first of them is our sanctifi- 
cation. It is very glorious that the thing that 
God first undertakes to do is to make and 
keep us right. Instead of giving us an out- 
ward law and compelling us to keep it with- 
out power, He promises to put it in our 
hearts, to make us live it, to make us incor- 
porate it into our being, to enshrine it in our 



86 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

affections, to make it our A^ery nature, until 
we shall live it and keep it, spontaneously, 
joyfully, lovingly, and with our whole heart. 
This is what the Holy Spirit does and there- 
fore, on the day of Pentecost, He came on 
the anniversary of the giving of the law to 
be the inner law of holiness a,nd power in 
every behever's heart. 

Next, He promises to be our God. He 
next comes to us to be our all-sufificiency for 
every need. He lets us own Him and pos- 
sess Him as our God, and use Him in His in- 
finite resources for every need. Further, 
He promises that we shall know the Lord 
for ourselves, and have His light and guid- 
ance, not being dependent upon others to 
teach, but receiving directly from His will 
and mind for us. And finally, it includes 
complete forgiveness and eternal obliteration 
of all sin and transgression, the blotting out 
of the past, our entire justification, and the 
treating of His children as if they had not 
sinned. Beloved, will you take this mighty 
covenant? It is yours by purchase of the Re- 



CHRIST OUR SURETY. 87 

deemer's blood; and if you simply accept 
Jesus, ''How shall He not with Him also 
freely give us all things?" and what can you 
need besides this mighty provision? 

III. THE SECURITY OF THIS COVENANT. 

He says, ''It is an everlasting covenant, 
in all things ordered and sure." Again He 
says, " The mountains shall depart, and the 
hills be removed; but my kindness shall not 
depart from thee, neither shall the covenant 
of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that 
hath mercy on thee." 

The reason it is so secure is because it is not 
dependent upon us at all, but on its great 
surety, the Lord Jesus Christ. If we were 
dependent upon our works in the slightest 
particular, we should fail and wreck all our 
prospects; but He has confirmed it and 
therefore it must stand, and if we simply 
stand in Him, trusting and following Him, 
He will accomplish all its provisions in us 
and for us. Therefore the apostle says, 
" Therefore it is of faith that it might be of 
grace, to the end that the promise may be 



88 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

sure to all the seed. " If it had been of works it 
could not have been sure; but it is by faith, 
and faith is nothing but receiving a gift and 
thanking Him for it, and continuing to trust 
Him for it. 

Again, it is sure because Grod not only 
promised it, but He has covenanted it and 
sworn to it. The very strongest language 
has been employed to emphasize the abso- 
lute security of this great promise of mercy, 
^^That by two immutable things, in which 
it was impossible for God to lie, we might 
have a strong consolation, who have fled for 
refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before 
us in the gospel. " If we simply have fled for 
refuge, and are holding fast to our hope in 
Christ and to Christ our hope, the anchor 
must hold amid all the storms of doubt and 
temptation. 

Again, it is secure because it is based on 
God's pure mercy, and not upon our deserv- 
ing. He takes us from the beginning and 
He holds us to the end as the children of His 
mercy. It is not merely that He takes us at 



CHRIST OUR SURETY. 89 

first in mercy and afterwards treats us ac- 
cording to our deserving, but all the way 
along we must recognize ourselves as worth- 
less and undeserving, living upon His mercy, 
and saved and sanctified through His free 
grace. Therefore our very sanctification, 
instead of being a merit, is simply a richer 
mercy, and the apostle says, ^^That they which 
have received abundance of grace and the 
gift of righteousness shall reign in life by 
one Jesus Christ." 

Oh, it is so sweet to feel that we are ever 
lying in the bosom of His mercy, and that 
we claim His great salvation with the con- 
sciousness of our nothingness and worthless - 
ness, and yet of our infinite and everlasting 
life in Christ ! Therefore the apostle has said 
that ^'all the promises of Him are yea, and 
in Him Amen. Everything we ever claim in 
answer to believing prayer must come 
through His mercy and covenant; but we 
claim them all for this great reason, ^'for Je- 
sus' sake." And they all are yea at the be- 
ginning, and shall be Amen at the end; for 



90 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

we simply claim them and hold to them for 
His sake and in His name. He is the surety 
of our covenant. 

Or, shall we say that the yea is God's as- 
surance. His repeated word, His second im- 
mutable thing, and the Amen is the echo 
of our faith as it takes Him at His word, 
and declares it shall be done? Thank God for 
His secure and everlasting covenant. Thank 
God that in Christ it covers us. Beloved, let 
us take it, and let our names be written to it 
afresh, and cover with it all our future way. 
Let us cover with it our' sins behind, our 
hearts within, our way before, our hours of 
temptation and conflict, our hours of suffer- 
ing and trial, our hours of prayer, our hours 
of service, our ignorance and helplessness, 
our perils, and our paths of difficulty all the 
way down to the tomb, all the way up to 
His coming. It covers all right up to the 
throne; and the anchor will hold, until, 
within the vail all the storms are past, and 
the surges swell no more, and we shall say 
around the throne, with a great shout, ^'Sal- 



CHRIST OUR SURETY. 91 

vation unto our God who sitteth upon the 
throne, and unto the Lamb." 

'^ Beloved, have you been thinking mostly 
of your faith and your works, and your 
fidelity to God? Have you not, perhaps, been 
somewhat under the covenant of Sinai, and 
therefore weakened and crushed? Oh! has- 
ten to Calvary, and take refuge in the hope 
set before you in the gospel, with a heart 
humbly and simply yielded to Jesus. Take 
His great covenant rather than yours, and 
rest in His faithful and everlasting pledge 
to carry you through all, and say, ^^Who 
shall separate us from the love of Christ." 
It is not the babe's arms that hold the 
mother; but the mother's arms that hold the 
babe. 

"It's not my love to thee, 

That I dehght to tell, 
But on thy love, O Christ to me, 

How I delight to dwell ! 

Ere the creation rose. 

Or angels sang above. 
The records of the past disclose. 

Thine everlasting love. 



92 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

Lord, help me to believe 
Thy wondrous love to me, 

So shall my heart more fully give, 
Thine own love back to thee." 






CHAPTER VI. 



CHEIST OUE PASSOVER. 



"Purge out, therefore, the old leaven, that ye may 
be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even 
Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us : therefore let 
us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with 
the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the 
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." 1 Cor. v : 



Id 



HE Jewish Passover is one of the most 
T^ lasting memorials of God's covenant 
with His ancient people. After three thou- 
sand years have passed away, after temple 
and tabernacle worship have ceased, after 
the scattering of Israel's sons in another land, 
after the cessation of sacrifices and ceremo- 
nial worship in almost^every other particular, 
after the treading down of Jerusalem for 
nearly twelve centuries, you can still find as 
every Nisan returns, every Hebrew house- 
hold in the world gathering around their 
table at the evening hour of the passover 
week, eating the flesh of the lamb and the 



94: THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

unleavened cakes with bitter herbs, while 
the father of the household, with lighted 
candle, passes through the chambers and 
searches under every article of furniture to 
see if he can find a single particle of leaven, 
and then solemnly pronounces that all the 
leaven is cast out. They sit down together 
under the sprinkled blood, and partake of 
the paschal supper. How vividly it all in- 
terprets the words of our text, ^^ Christ our 
Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us 
keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither 
with the leaven of malice and wickedness, 
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity 
and truth!" 

I. THE PASCHAL LAMB. 

In the book of Exodus we find the story 
of the first passover. ' It was the beginning 
of months to Israel, even as the acceptance 
of Christ as our Saviour is to us the be- 
ginning of life's record in its eternal form. 

1. The first thing was the selecting of the 
lamb. It was chosen on the tenth day of 



CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 95 

the month, the time suggesting the fullness 
of the time when God sent forth His Son. 
The lamb was first separated and set apart 
for three days and a half under the obser- 
vation of all the people, and known to be 
without blemish and without spot. Even 
so at His baptism on the banks of the Jor- 
dan the Lord Jesus Christ was set apart by 
the Holy Ghost for three years and a half 
to the observation of all men, before He 
was sacrificed for the sins of the world. 

2. Again, the lamb was unblemished. 
So Christ was perfectly harmless, and un- 
defiled, and separate from sinners, with no 
guilt of His own to expiate, and therefore 
wholly free to be an atonement for the 
world. His perfection was witnessed by 
all men. His blamelessness could be seen 
in all possible circumstances. His life was 
open as the noontide blaze, and none could 
find fault with Him in aught that He ever 
said or did. Even in the judgment of His 
enemies, it was the most perfect and beauti- 
ful life e er lived below the skies. Even if 



96 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

there was no historical Christ, the Christ of 
the g0!=ipels is a faultless and irreproachable 
picture, which infidelity gazes upon with 
astonishment and admiration. 

3. The lamb was next slain by the con- 
gregation of Israel. And so Christ was 
sacrificed by the decision of the Jewish 
Sanhedrim and the act of the entire nation; 
and was thus in some sense the public and 
official oblation made by them for their 
sins. The words of Caiaphas just before 
his death had a peculiar significance, which 
he did not understand. ''It is expedient," 
he said, ''that one shall die for the people, 
and that the whole nation perish not." 
And so Judaism, like the great High Priest, 
offered up its own Messiah as a sacrifice 
and an offering for the sins of the world; 
and as they gazed upon the quivering 
bosom, and the failing breath, and the 
flowing blood of that gentle lamb, how 
vividly they must have realized the meaning 
of sin and the cost of salvation ! Even so 
we still behold the dying agonies of the 



CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 97 

Lamb of God, and in the memorial of His 
death, in some measure reahze afresh ^'He 
wds led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a 
sheep before his shearers was dumb, so 
opened He not His mouth," until we see, 

"Mercy's streams in streams of blood, 

Plenteous grace our soul bedewing, 

Plead and claim our peace with God." 

What was the full significance of that 
death? It was the substitute for their death. 
The first-born of Egypt fell before the de- 
stroyer's stroke; but that death took the 
place of their own death, and they escaped. 
And so, for our life His fife is the sacrifice, 
and with that blood over us our spiritual life 
is redeemed, and our physical life is safe un- 
til His will shall call it home. No destroying 
angel can touch us, though he may hover 
near, so long as we are under the blood, and 
that death is our substitute and sacrifice. 

4. The sprinkling of the blood. The death 
of the lamb was followed by the sprinkling 
of the blood upon the door posts and lintel of 
every home. It is not enough that Christ 



98 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

should be sacrificed: He must also be appro- 
priated by each for himself and herself. It 
is very sweet to know that the sprinkling 
was not done by other hands, but each house- 
hold sprinkled its own doors; and so can each 
of us apply to ourselves the precious blood of 
our Eedeemer. It is freely shed for all, and 
each of us can take it as freely as we may. 
How precious to know that this blood is for 
us still! Take it, dear sinner, and you can 
cover yourself from this very moment, so 
that no angel of destruction can touch your 
being; but you shall stand sheltered by the 
very throne of God from all harm in the pre- 
cious blood of Christ. '' We are come to the 
blood of sprinkling which speaketh better 
things than that of bulls." Have you ap- 
plied it? Apply it now, and ever walk un- 
der its sheltering, cleansing covering. 

II. THE FEAST. 

Not only was there a sacrifice, but there 
was also a feast. Not only was the blood 
shed for the remission of our sins, but the 



CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 99 

life of our dear Lord is also given us for 
our life. They were to eat the flesh of the 
lamb as w-ell as sprinkle its blood. We 
need not say that this represents Christ's 
own very life given to us as the food and 
nourishment of our whole being. ^^I am 
the living bread, he that eateth me shall 
live by me." ^' The bread that I shall gi e 
is my flesh, that I shall give for the life of 
the world, for my flesh is meat indeed, and' 
my blo^^d is driok indeed." They were to 
eat the whole lamb, with the head, the legs, 
and the purtenance thereof ; and so we are 
to feed on the whole of Christ. We need 
His head for our thoughts. ''We have the 
mind of Christ. " We need His legs for our 
walk; and the purtenance thereof covers 
everything that pertains to our Hfe, and so 
there is nothing but Christ covers, supplies, 
fills. They were to leave none of it until 
the morning, and so there is nothing in 
Jesus that we can afford to leave unap- 
propriated. He wants to fill all our life, to 
satisfy all our being, and to lead each one 



100 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

of US into the very fullness of union with 
Him in every particular. Let us take our 
sacrificial feast. It is not merely food; it is 
a feast. Grod does not merely supply all 
our necessities. He gives us abundance, 
wine upon the lees, fatness full of marrow, 
overflowing and boundless grace and bless- 
ing. So let us keep this sacred feast. 

They were not to eat of it raw, but 
cooked with fire; and so the Holy Ghost 
must prepare Christ for us and make Him 
to be suitable nourishment. He only can; 
and He loves to minister Jesus to the 
hungry and thirsty heart, to take His full- 
ness and feed it into us, until every part of 
our being is sweetly satisfied and strength- 
ened by the hving bread. And they were 
to eat together this feast. It was not a 
solitary meal. It is not possible for you or 
me to take Christ alone in all His fullness. 
It is with all saints that we enter into the 
height and depth and breadth of the love of 
Christ which passeth knowledge. The 
more narrow and isolated you are in your 



CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 101 

Christian life, the less full and rich it will 
be; and the larger your heart, and the fuller 
your fellowship in Him, the more of Him 
will you eDJoy. If their family was not 
big enough, they were to take in the stranger; 
and so God wants some of us to enlarge our 
circle of love, to unite our hearts with 
others in the full fellowship of holy love, 
fitly framed together to grow up into all 
the maturity of our Christian life. 

There were some bitter herbs in this 
feast, but they only added zest to the 
sacred meal; even as our trials are turned 
into blessings, and become the bitter sweet 
of life when truly sanctified by the Holy 
Ghost to a loving, obedient heart. 

III. THE LEAVEN. 

This represents the element of corruption, 
fermentation, impurity. Therefore we are 
to purge out the old leaven that we may be 
a new lump, because we are unleavened. 
The leaven represents all that which is 
earthly and sinful; and we may know the 



102 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

leaven by its effects. That which produces 
the ferment of earthly passion, agitation, 
and unrest, selfish and unholy desire, re- 
bellion against God, disobedience and sin, 
is leaven. There are two leavens. There 
is the old leaven. It is just the natural 
life which God wants laid down, and then 
taken up in His pure and heavenly life. 
And then there is a worst leaven, the 
leaven of malice and wickedness. All this 
must be purged out. 

The purging is sometimes severe, for the 
evil is obstinate. As we have already said, 
the Jewish father searches the house with 
lighted candle to see if there is a crumb of 
leaven, and having done so, he solemnly 
pronounces the house to be clean. So with 
the word of God, we are to pass through 
the chambers of our heart, and having 
found any evil thing, cast it out, lay it down 
at the feet of Christ, and under the blood, 
and when we can find nothing that our 
heart can condemn us for, we are to rest, 
we are to pronounce the house clean, the 



CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 103 

lump unleavened, and hear the Master say 
to our peaceful heart, '^ Now are ye clean 
through the word that I have spoken unto 
you, abide in me, and I in you." 

God does not want us to be in continual 
unrest and self -reproof; but in quietness 
and confidence to trust Him to keep us 
pure and holy. The enemy will love to sit 
upon us in judgment, and to have us to 
help him; but this is not promotive of 
holiness any more than the opening up of 
the grave, and the upturning of the bones 
of the dead could be promotive of health. 
Let us walk in innocency of heart, beheving 
that we please God, and sweetly resting in 
His love. We cannot purge out the old 
leaven, but we can give it to Christ, and He 
will cleanse us by His own precious blood 
and Holy Spirit. And having yielded up to 
Him, we must beheve that He does cleanse 
us, and walk in simple faith and self-for- 
getfulness, with holy vigilance, and yet 
with holy confidence in His leading and 
keeping grace and power. 



104 THE NAMES OP JESUS. 

IV. THE BREAD. 

''The unleavened bread of sincerity and 
truth." Not only are we to be ourselves 
unleavened, but our daily bread must be 
unleavened. We cannot feed upon mixed 
food. The cause of weakness and suffering 
in most cases is that we feed so much upon 
earthly diet and forbidden bread. Sincerity 
literally means singleness, and truth sug- 
gests the idea of God's word, which is indeed 
our daily food. As we feed upon it un- 
mixed with the exciting thoughts of man, 
we shall be fed and nourished in all godli- 
ness and sincerity, and shall grow in grace 
and in the knowledge of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ. 

V. THE JOURNEY. 

They were to eat their passover in haste, 
with loins girded, and shoes on their feet, 
and staves in their hands. They were on 
their way farther to their full inheritance; 
and so we go forth from the passover to all 
the fullness of our Father's will, and our 



CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 105 

future inheritance. Let our loins be girded 
for service. Let our feet be shod for our 
holy race. Let our hands hold the hand of 
promise. Let our vision be set firmly 
toward His coming, and all His holy will, 
and thus covered with His blood, and feed- 
ing upon His flesh, separated from all evil, 
and pressing on behind the pillar of cloud 
that leads our way, let us walk as strangers 
and pilgrims upon earth, looking and 
hastening unto the coming of our Lord, and 
preparing for it by lives of holy service and 
consecration. 






CHAPTER VII. 



CHRIST OUR PROPHET. 



" A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto 
you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye 
hear." Acts vii: 37. 

fHE Hebrew prophets were the noblest 
class of men in ancient Israel. The 
priests were not always pure and true to 
God, for even the sons of Aaron brought dis- 
honor upon themselves in the first genera- 
tion; and the kings with few exceptions 
were unfaithful and unholy in the influence 
of their lives. The very best of them, David, 
Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah, were 
marked by the strongest imperfections, and 
many of them were blots upon the history 
of their country; but the prophets of Israel 
were always true, from Moses, the first glo- 
rious leader and teacher of God's inheritance, 
to John the Baptist, who closed the ancient 
dispensation^ and ushered in the new. They 



CHRIST OUR PROPHET. 107 

were all types of the great Prophet^ whom 
Stephen announces as their divme successor, 
and the great Apostle and Prophet of our 
profession, Jesus Christ. Let us look at His 
prophetic office as it is illustrated by their 
functions and their lives. 

I. THE FUNCTIONS OF OUR GREAT PROPHET. 

1. In general, the ancient prophet was the 
messenger of God to the people, and the rep- 
resentative of His will concerning them. So 
Jesus Christ to us is the messenger of Jeho- 
vah, the Word of God, the voice of divine 
authority and divine love, who brings to us 
God's will, and reveals to us His plan of sal- 
vation and life. 

2. More particularly He is our teacher, 
leading us into all the truth, and building us 
up in our faith and life. It is He who gives 
us the first ray of light that dawns upon the 
darkness of the natural heart. It is He who 
shows to us ourselves and Himself, and en- 
ables us to trust Him as our Saviour. It is 
He who opens our inner eyes to see the light 



108 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

that streams from heaven through the 
Word. It is He who shows to us the deeper 
truths of Christian hfe, our Sanctifier, our 
Life, our Healer, our help in every time of 
need. It is He, who as fast as we believe, 
enlarges our vision, our hope, our desire, our 
knowledge, our faith, and shows us the King 
in His beauty, and the land that is afar off. 
It is He who anoints our eyes with eye- salve 
that we may see, and then opens to us the 
light which we are able to receive. It is He 
who makes the truth not only light but life, 
and enables us to appropriate it, to beheve it, 
to feed upon it, to be strengthened and 
quickened and sanctified by it. He is our 
wonderful Counselor, our unerring Teacher, 
our Faithful Prophet. 

3. As our Prophet He guides us in per- 
plexity, and shows us the way we should go. 
He not only gives us truth, but light upon 
our path. '' He that folio we th me shall not 
walk in darkness, but shaU have the fight of 
life." The ancient prophets were the coun- 
selors of the king and the nations in hours 



CHRIST OUR PROPHET. 109 

of perplexity. Nathan came to David with 
the Lord's word concerning his important 
acts. Ehsha was the counselor of the king. 
Samuel was the guide of Israel. Jesus is our 
leader and guide. When He putteth us forth, 
He goeth before us, and the sheep follow 
Him, for they know His voice. He will not 
let us err. ' ' He will lead us in a straight 
way, wherein we shall not stumble, ' ' and He 
will stay with us nearest of all in the dark 
perplexities and crises of life. 

4. As our Prophet He unfolds the vision 
of the future, showing us His plan concern- 
ing the world and the church thus espe- 
cially His own personal coming, and prepar- 
ing us to work for Him in intelligent hope 
and co-operation, and showing us as much 
of His plan for His own life as we need to 
know to inspire us with courage and enable 
us to meet with intelligence the duties and 
claims of life; whispering to our hearts the 
assurance of His answer to our prayers; lead- 
ing out our new hopes in holy aspirations 
for service and blessing, and giving us 



110 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

glimpses of the great and mighty things He 
would have us to aspire to and expect from 
Him. 

5. As our Prophet He is the great wonder 
worker, for the prophet of old not only 
brought the message of God, but accredited 
it by signs and wonders, proving as Moses, 
Ehjah and Elisha, by their supernatural 
working, that their message was indeed di- 
vine. So our Lord Jesus Christ, our own 
dear Prophet, brings us not only words, but 
deeds; fulfills what He commands, and ever 
seals His message to us by His own omnipo- 
tent and blessed working. 

II. ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHRIST'S PROPHETIC 

WORK FROM THE LIVES OF THE 

ANCIENT PROPHETS. 

1. In Moses we behold the first type of our 
great prophet. Born of the oppressed race, 
he was one of themselves, and could come 
near to their hearts in deepest sympathy. So 
Christ is a brother born of our flesh and 
blood, and farther, a brother born for adver- 



CHRIST OUR PROPHET. Ill 

sity. To them He was the revealer of Grod's 
purpose of deliverance and redemption, and 
he led them out of Egypt into their cove- 
nant with Jehovah. So Christ, our great 
Prophet, reveals to us the great redemption, 
and leads us into it. He was the revealer to 
them of the law of God and the gospel, as 
unfolded in the wondrous Tabernacle and 
types; and so Jesus Christ is our teacher, 
not only of moral and spiritual truth, but 
especially of salvation, that glorious salva- 
tion of which the ancient Tabernacle was 
the wondrous type. Above all else, He was 
their devoted, faithful and unwavering 
Friend, utterly true to their interests amid 
the great discouragement and provocation, 
and never failing them even when they, 
failed Him and proved wholly unfaithful to 
their God. 

How often they disappointed Him and 
provoked their God, but never once did He 
falter in His faithful love. How often did 
they speak against Moses and Jehovah, and 
mui^mured in the wilderness, but He ever 



112 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

met them with new hght and deliverance. 
And even when Jehovah seemed for a mo- 
ment about to reject them and offered Moses 
a new inheritance of his own if he would 
give them up, Moses refused, and offered 
himself a sacrifice for the people he loved, 
crying, ^^ Yet now, Lord, forgive their iniq- 
uity, and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of 
thy book." 

And yet again, when a more terrible crisis 
came, and they refused to enter the land of 
promise, and were driven back into the wil- 
derness for forty years to perish in their un- 
belief, Moses did not leave them, but went 
back with them every step of the way, 
clinging to his unworthy children with 
more than a mother's love, until once more 
he brought them to the borders of their in- 
heritance which he lost through their prov- 
ocation. 

Beautiful type of the more gracious, ten- 
der, faithful Prophet whom we follow ! How 
often we grieve Him, and how faithfully He 
loves us and keeps us : " for He will never 



CHRIST OUR PROPHET. 113 

leave us, nor forsake us/' until He shall 
have accomplished all His gracious will for 
all of us! More than the love of Moses is the 
love of Jesus! How we have proved that 
love already! We can trust it still, for He 
hath said, ''the mountains shall depart, and 
the hills shall be removed ; but my kindness 
shall not depart from thee; neither shall the 
covenant of my peace be removed, saith the 
Lord that hath mercy upon thee. " 

2. Or shall we look at Samuel, the great 
reformer, the prophet of Israel's return to 
God from the dark and long apostasy under 
the judges, when for four hundred years the 
light of God's covenant presence was almost 
extinguished; the prophet who established the 
whole school of Hebrew prophets, and so 
shaped and formed out of the chaos of sin and 
wretchedness amid which he was born, the 
elements of unity, strength and stability in 
the kingdom of David, which he left as his 
heritage to Israel, and which were far more 
the work of his life than even of David's 
own faith and fidelity to God. Samuel, 



114 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

the faithful friend of weak and inconstant 
Israel, expressed his noble spirit in the 
words which he said to them on one occa- 
sion, ^'God forbid that I should sin against 
the Lord in ceasing to pray for you; but I 
will teach you the right way and the good 
way." Samuel was the type of Jesus, the 
prophet of the poor backslider, the Christ 
that restored Peter and Thomas, and that 
still tenderly and faithfully awaits to wel- 
come back the wanderer to His bosom again. 
How tenderly He loves the contrite heart! 
How graciously He restores the child ! How 
sweetly He forgives ! How mightily He keeps ! 
How faithfully He loves ! How perfectly He 
heals our backslidings, and becomes ''the 
dew upon Israel, and reviving us as the corn, 
and causing us to grow as the vine, our 
smell as Lebanon," and leading us on and up 
until we are established, strengthened and 
built up, and settled, and become like Israel 
of old, His own royal kingdom and throne. 
3. Elijah tells us of the great prophet of re- 
proof and correction, the loving Teacher 



CHRIST OUR PROPHET. 115 

who has sometimes to show us our faults, 
and to chasten us for them in tender love. 
Elijah was the faithful reprover of sin, and 
represented the judicial element in God. So 
our great Prophet has often to correct His 
people, and show them their faults and lead 
them from the error of their ways by His 
heart -searching discipline. But He is a bet- 
ter reprover than Elijah; for there is no bet- 
ter evidence than the life of Elijah himself 
of the failure of even that greatest of 
prophets, and the tender faithfulness of the 
true Prophet who dealt with him as He does 
with us. Would we see the true spirit of 
Jesus our Prophet? Let us look at the God of 
Elijah, as the poor broken prophet lies under 
the juniper tree, a fugitive and a failure after 
the highest triumph of his glorious life. 
How gently God deals with him! He first 
rests him with sleep, and then feeds him by 
angel hands, then sends him alone to Horeb, 
and asks him, ' ^ What doest thou here, Eli- 
jah? " True He speaks with the earthquake, 
the whirlwind and the fire, but He ends with 



116 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

the still, small voice. The last message is a 
restoration of his commissioiij and a renewal 
of his call to service as He sends him forth 
to anoint Jehu, Hazael and Elisha for the 
work that yet remains to be done. So gently 
yet faithfully does our dear Prophet teach 
us ; not crushing the spirit that would fail 
before Him or the souls that He has made, 
but tenderly leading us into all His light, 
and then making the very best of us, not- 
withstanding our worst failures. Let us 
never doubt our faithful Christ, our wonder- 
ful Counselor, our mighty God, our ever- 
lasting Father, our Prince of Peace. 

4. The most beautiful prophetic life of the 
Old Testament was that of Elisha, and he is 
a perfect type of Jesus Christ, our Prophet. 
Elijah represented the law; Elisha, the gospel; 
Elijah, the discipline of judgment; Ehsha, the 
salvation of grace. Elijah was the thunder- 
bolt and lightning ; Ehsha, the sunshine and 
light. Elijah was the woodman's axe and fire ; 
Elisha, the husbandman with his seed and 
watering-pot, with fields of green and har- 



CHRIST OUR PHOPHET. 117 

vests of golden grain. Elisha's is the min- 
istry of love — the ministry of Jesus. He 
begins by healing the barren land and the 
water by sprinkling salt in its fountains. 
Like the great Prophet who does not blame 
the outflowing of our lives so much, but 
rather goes to the fountain-head and heals 
the source of our thoughts, motives and 
actions by the touch of His mighty love. 

Look at him again as he meets the baffled 
kings of Judah, Israel and Edom in the 
valley of dearth and famine ; and instead of 
blaming them for their mistake, gently inter- 
poses for their deliverance, commands the 
valley to be filled with ditches, claims from 
heaven the floods of water to fill all the 
mighty spaces, and overfiow in blessing for 
the perishing armies. So our great Prophet 
comes to us in the calamities that we have 
brought upon ourselves, and delivers us, and 
then gently leads us to greater blessings. 
Look at him again as the poor widow appeals 
to him for help against the creditors who 
are about to seize upon her sons for her debts. 



118 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

'^ What hast thou m the house ?" is all he 
asks, and then commands the pot of oil to 
be brought forth and poured into all the 
empty vessels she can find or borrow, until 
they are all filled to overflowing, and she is 
rich with a harvest of faith; and then he bids 
her sell the oil, pay her debts, and live upon 
the rest. 

So our great Prophet meets us in every 
emergency by showing us that we have 
within our house the one remedy for every- 
thing that tries us. The little pot of oil, the 
Holy Spirit, so faint it may be in His man- 
ifested presence that it seems less than the 
little finger of our hand ; but that is the little 
finger of God, and back of it lies all His om- 
nipotence, wisdom and love, and all we have 
to do is to take that Holy Spirit and pour it 
into every vessel of need, both for ourselves 
and others, and lo! the vessels overflow and 
the blessings only cease when we cease to 
make room and to pour out. > 

Look at him again as the sons of the 
prophet lose their borrowed axe in the river 



CHRIST OUR PROPHET. 119 

Jordan, where they had been cutting wood 
for their house, and the axe had sHpped from 
the handle to the bottom of the river. In- 
stantly he orders a branch or handle to be 
dropped into the river, and lo ! immediately 
the axe rises to the surface, and the lost im- 
plement is recovered by the hands of the 
young men. So our great Prophet is equal 
to the smallest as well as the largest emer- 
gencies. We, too, lose our axe sometimes 
— our power for service, our victory over 
temptation, our peace and joy, our conscious- 
ness of Christ's presence ; but there is a piece 
of wood — the pilgrim's staff, the sacred 
promise— that we can ever find equal to the 
emergency, and, as we cast it into the wa- 
ter, lo! our blessing will rise to meet it, our 
lost axe will come back to us; the very laws 
of nature may be suspended, the iron can 
swim again, the thing that was heavier than 
lead can rise with buoyant wings, the heavy 
heart can mount above and sing and trust 
with new power and victory, and we can 
praise Him whose faithful love has turned 
darkness into day and sorrow into joy. 



120 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

Or look again at his triumph over his ene- 
mies. The armies of Syria surromided him 
and his servant, and the servant gives a cry 
of despair, ^^ Alas! my master," as he sees no 
possible v^ay of escape. All that Elisha asks 
is that the eyes of his servant may be 
opened, and lo ! on the mountain round about 
there are armies of angelic horses and char- 
iots and soldiers, and instantly their fears 
are calmed, and they know that all is well. 
So, beloved, our great Prophet can show us, 
though every avenue of escape be shut off, 
that there is ever an upper way that carries 
us above our foes, and a superior host that 
has the advantage of position over all our 
foes. But that is not all. He then asks the 
Lord to blind the soldiers, and so he goes 
down to them without a fear, and leads 
them all the way to the city of Samaria. It 
is indeed a triumph as amusing as it is sub- 
lime. When they reach the city the king is 
so delighted to have his enemies in his power 
that he wants to slay them. Elisha treats 
the proposal as absurd, and orders that a 



CHRIST OUR PROPHET. 121 

magnificent banquet be prepared for them; 
and so they feed them and feast them until 
the men are astounded, paralyzed with won- 
der and dismay at the treatment they have 
received, and when all is over, they are sent 
back to their own land to tell how easily the 
prophet of Israel has defeated them without 
a blow, except from the hand of love. We 
need hardly wonder when it is added, that 
the bands of the Syrians came no more unto 
the land of Israel. And so our great Prophet 
teaches us to triumph over our foes by the 
weapons of heavenly love, that the surest 
way to kill our enemies is by kindness, to 
consume them by the coals of fire of loving 
deeds and words and recompenses. 

Such is the great and gracious Prophet 
that is willing to walk by our side, that 
is willing to dwell in our heart of hearts, 
to be our wisdom, our guide. Happy they 
that walk in His fellowship and in His love! 
For them no emergency can be extreme, no 
situation can be desperate, no adversary can 
be formidable. No purpose formed from 



122 ' THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

above can fail. Blessed Prophet, thou art 
ours! Help us to abide in thee, and follow 
thee evermore ! 

5. We might speak of Isaiah, the prophet 
of high and holy teaching, as the type of 
Him who leads us into the high and loftiest 
heights of heavenly truth and life, where 
the seraphim veil their faces and feet with 
their wings, and exclaim, "Holy! Holy! 
Holy! is the Lord God of hosts, the whole 
earth is full of His glory;" where faith 
mounts up on high to see ' ' the king in His 
beauty, and the land that is far off;" where 
peace nestles under the shadow of the Rock 
of Ages; where hope looks out upon His 
coming, and sings ' ' The ransomed of the 
Lord shall return and come to Zion with 
songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads; 
they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sor- 
row and sighing shall flee away. " Or again, 
"The sun shall no more go down; neither 
shall the moon withdraw itself; for the Lord 
shall be thy everlasting light, and the days 
of thy mourning shall be ended." Or holy 



CHRIST OUR PROPHET. 123 

service waits His power and bidding, and ex- 
claims, ''He wakeneth me morning by 
morning, as one that has been instructed 
that I may know how to speak a word in 
season to him that is weary;" or, going forth 
to do His bidding, sing, "How beautiful 
upon the mountain are the feet of Him that 
bringeth good tidings, that pubhsheth peace; 
that bringeth good tidings of joy; that pub- 
hsheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy 
God reigneth ! " Or prayer reaches out in 
the name of Jesus, with mighty faith, and 
obeys the great injunction, ''Ask me of 
things concerning my sons, and concerning 
the work of my hands command ye me." 
Or holy gladness lifts up its voice and sings, 
"Therefore with joy shall ye draw water 
out of the wells of salvation. Cry out and 
shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is 
the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee." 
So still our Prophet speaks to us, and teaches 
us and leads us as we abide in Him. 

5. We might speak of Daniel, the prophet 
of the future, as the type of Him who un- 



124 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

folds to US the vision of His coming, and as 
much of His will for us as it is best for us to 
know or hope for, for Jesus also shows to us 
the things to come, and leads us into the 
life of hope as well as of faith and love. 

Such is our glorious Prophet. Is He not 
dearer to us to day? Shall we not trust Him 
more fully, follow Him more closely, listen 
to Him more lovingly and obediently, and 
seek to send abroad His glorious truth 
among all nations, until the Prophet and 
the Priest shall have become the King of 
Kings and reign from shore to shore. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



MAKING DAVID KING. 



" All these were of one heart to make David king." 
1 Chron. xii:38. 

N ONE of the chapels of Oxford University 
there is a beautiful stained glass window, 
the exterior of which is decorated with 
sacred pictures from the Old Testament, 
the interior with corresponding pictures 
from the New, so that, when the sunlight 
faUs upon the window, the two pictures are 
blended, and an observer, standing inside of 
the cathedral, beholds the soft evening 
light falling upon the picture of Mount 
Moriah and Abraham's sacrifice of his son 
Isaac, and at the same time upon the cross 
of Calvary, which interprets the Old Testa- 
ment type; or again, perhaps, upon the 
brazen serpent as it blends with the great 
sacrifice of the Son of Man, Beautifully 



126 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

does this illustrate the connection between 
the Old Testament and the New, and the 
glorious fact that all the scenes of the 
ancient Scriptures are but figures, whose full 
meaning must be learned in the light of the 
gospel and the life and death of Jesus 
Christ! 

Of all the Old Testament types of Christ, 
none is more remarkable than David — born 
in Bethlehem, as Jesus was, a simple shep- 
herd foreshadowing the great Shepherd, a 
sufferer and an exile like the Man of Sor- 
rows, he at length became king, and is pre- 
eminently the type of Christ as our great 
King and Lord. In this respect he differed 
from Solomon, his son. Both of them are 
types of our coming King, but Solomon is 
the type rather of the kingdom after it shall 
havf^ become established in peace and 
righteousness. David, on the contrary, 
foreshadows the King of Kings in the years 
and centuries of His rejection by the world, 
and as He slowly conquers His kingdom 
and wins the crown which He is to wear 



MAKING DAVID KING. ^^^ 12 Y 

with His saints through the^ges of glory. 

This is His position to-day. Like David 
He has been anointed, and been proclaimed 
the King of the church and the nations, but 
like David He is rejected by the great ma- 
jority of mankind, and a counterfeit king 
usurps the throne, of whom Saul was the 
type. The world to-day is not subject to 
the will of God and the sceptre of Jesus, and 
never will be until He comes a second time. 
Even the church has refused, in large meas- 
ure, to be subject to her King, and has 
allowed the spirit of the world to control 
and contaminate her. But the true David 
has still His loyal friends and followers, 
although, like the followers of David in his 
exile, they are often the humblest of men 
and yet more and more will be the very out- 
casts of the world, but their connection with 
David made them illustrious, and to serve 
Jesus is enough to dignify and glorify any 
human name. 

This is the great object of our gathering 
at this time, and this is the great business 



128 THE NAMKS OF JESUS. 

of all true Christians today — to make Christ 
King. Let us first look at the way in which 
this may be accomplished, and secondly, at 
the character of the men on whom He de- 
pends to accomplish it, as illustrated in the 
picture of these ancient worthies who fol- 
lowed the fortunes of David and won for 
him his crown. 

I. 

1. Each of us can give Christ the kingdom 
of our own heart; and He will not use us to 
establish His kingdom in the world until He 
occupies the throne of our entire being, and 
becomes the King of our affections, our 
motives and our will, and all our heart. This 
must be done by the full surrender of love — 
a love that supremely gives Him the highest 
place, and makes Him our all in all. The 
ancient Pantheon offered a niche to the 
Christians for the image of Jesus, but they 
answered, ^' Our God must reign alone; we 
can have but one king, and Christ must be 
the sovereign of all our hearts." He is pre- 
paring to-day a people for His glory, and 



MAKING DAVID KING. 129 

this is to be the test, that they follow the 
Lamb whithersoever He goeth, and give 
Him the bridal love which displaces every 
other which could for a moment hinder His 
supremacy. Beloved, have we given Christ 
all our heart, and do we gladly do it now; 
for the answer of your consciousness is the 
best test of your consecration. 

2. You can take Christ as the King of 
your life by giving Him your difficulties and 
adversaries to overcome, and permitting 
Him to subdue all His enemies and yours, 
and reign the Lord of all. Everything that 
comes up in your life is but another oppor- 
tunity of giving Him a larger and richer 
crown. It is too strong for you, but not for 
Him. Your land of promise is not a luxuri- 
ous inheritance of self-indulgent ease, but 
a battle-field of countless foes, and ever 
harder, nobler triumphs. Every confederacy 
of hostile kings that comes up to meet you, 
is but another challenge to prove the might 
of your great Captain and all- conquering 
King, and, instead of shrinking and com- 



130 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

plaining that the conflict is so hard and the 
foes so mighty and so many, you should re- 
cognize them as His foes rather than yours, 
and hand them over to Him for still more 
glorious victories. '^It was of the Lord that 
those kings should have come against Joshua 
with the intent that they might be utterly 
destroyed. " Every son of Anak that marched 
out against the armies of Israel was sent 
forth at God's command, not to destroy 
Israel, but to meet their own destruction ; 
and but for the battle there could never 
have been the annihilation of the foe, and 
so he says to us, '^In nothing terrify your 
actions, which is to them an evident token 
of perdition, but to you of salvation and that 
of God. " There is nothing ever comes up in 
your hfe but Christ anticipated it long ago, 
has been prepared for it from the beginning, 
and, if you will let Him, wiU carry you 
through it in glorious victory. This is the 
meaning of His kingdom ; He is thus win- 
ning for you and Himself a mutual crown. 
Will you, beloved, exalt Him over aU your 



MAKING DAVID KING. 131 

difficulties and trials, and crown Him Lord 
of all ? 

3. We can make Christ King by laboring 
for the evangelization of the world, and the 
spread of His glorious truth and work. We 
can win for Him the crown of many hearts, 
and thus hasten His glorious coming. 

There are two ways especially in which 
this can be done. The first is in calling cut 
His bride even from the church ; not neces- 
sarily in the sense of separating them from 
the communion of the church, but rather in 
the sense of separating them unto Him in 
entire consecration. He is preparing for 
Himself a bride, not consisting of mere pro- 
fessors, but of those who are wholly His, 
separated from the world and sin, robed in 
the whitest garments of His perfect righte- 
ousness, and wedded in affection to Him 
alone as their Bridegroom and Lord. 

And then we can all accomplish this by 
spreading the gospel among the unsaved, 
and sending it out especially to the heathen 
world. The great call of the Master to-day 



132 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

is to the evangelization of the nations ; and 
when this has been accomphshed, there will 
be no barrier in the way of His immediate 
return. Are we thus laboring to make Christ 
King, spreading His glorious truth, and call- 
ing all nations to prepare for His millennial 
reign ? This is the real purpose of God for 
His church to-day ; not so much to build up 
great and permanent institutions, as to be a 
messenger of the glad tidings, and to publish 
among the nations the glorious news that 
the King is about to come. 

Napoleon, in his hour of pride, refused to 
receive a crown from human hands, but, 
taking in his own fingers the royal diadem, 
and placing it upon his brow, he exclaimed, 
'' These hands have won; these hands alone 
shall give the crown of empire." But the 
Lord Jesus desires to receive His crown 
from those who love Him, and honors us 
with the great privilege of winning it for 
Him and laying it at His dear feet. The 
Lord help us to hasten His kingdom, and to 
add to the glory of His many crowns. 



MAKING DAVID KING. 133 

II. WHO ARE THEY ON WHOM HE RELIES TO 
MAKE HIM KING? 

1. They had all be^n unhappy, helpless, 
and indeed, we might say, worthless men, 
for we read that whosoever was in debt or 
in any kind of trouble resorted to David in 
the cave of AduUam, and David made 
them one of His mighty men. Before they 
came to him they were the outlaws of soci- 
ety, but the moment they touched David 
they became ennobled, and afterwards were 
raised to be his princes and the officers of the 
kingdom. Even so we, whom Christ has 
chosen as His friends and fellow-workers, 
are by nature poor, unworthy sinners, with 
nothing to recommend us but simply this 
— that we have followed Jesus, and that He 
has touched us with His royal hand; and 
this is enough to make us glorious and illus- 
trious. Sinners by nature and practice we 
have been washed in His precious blood, and 
our love to Him is accepted as better than 
royal blood, and by-and-by He will say to us, 
" Ye are they which have continued with me 



134 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

in my temptations. And I appoint unto you 
a kingdom, as my Father has appointed 
unto me, that ye may eat and drink at my 
table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones, 
judging the twelve tribes of Israel. " 

2. In the description of the respective 
tribes that came up to make David King, 
we read of the Benjamites (1 Chronicles xii: 
2), that "They were armed with bows, and 
could use both the right hand and the left 
in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of 
a bow." They were two-handed men, i. e., all 
their power was given to their master, and 
they were ready, not only in season, but out 
of season, for service and warfare. So Christ 
would have His true soldiers not only speak 
out of a pulpit, or to read from a manuscript, 
but ever prepared to speak a word of warn- 
ing, or comfort, or salvation, as opportunity 
requires. 

3. They were armed men (verse 8). They 
"could handle shield and buckler; whose 
faces were like the faces of lions, and were 
as swift as the roes upon the mountains.' 



MAKING DAVID KING. 135 

There is a difference between a shield and a 
buckler. A shield is something that you 
hold yourself, but a buckler is something 
that is fastened upon the arm, and that can- 
not be lost. There is a kind of faith that we 
cling to, and there is a faith that holds us, 
and that we cannot lose — even the faith of 
God — like the buckler on the arm which we 
retain in the heat of battle, and which even 
the dying warrior still holds above his 
breast. This is the faith that Christ would 
have us receive, and in which He would 
have us conquer. 

4. They were courageous men; they feared 
no danger (verse 15). " These are they that 
went over Jordan in the first month, when 
it had overflown all its banks, and they put 
to flight all them of the valleys, both toward 
the east and toward the west." They had a 
hard test. As they approached the Jordan 
there were enemies upon the east, but they 
scattered them hke the smoke before the 
wind. Next, the Jordan had flooded its 
banks and could not be forded, but they 



136 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

sprang into the flood and swam across, fear- 
ing neither flood nor foe. And when they 
reached the farther shore, still the enemy 
stood facing them along the banks, but they 
put them to flight. Perhaps they did not 
even wait for the battle, for men so brave 
were not likely to meet a formidable resis- 
tance. And when we press through the tides 
of opposition and the hosts of hell, we shall 
find our enemies still encamped before us, 
and each battle will be on the verge of a 
greater victory still to come. 

5. They were true-hearted men (verses 17, 
18). ^' And David went out to meet them, 
and answered and said unto them. If ye be 
come peaceably unto me to help me, mine 
heart shall be knit unto you; but if ye come 
to betray me to mine enemies, seeing there 
is no wrong in mine hands, the God of our 
fathers look thereon and rebuke it. Then 
the Spirit came upon Amasai, who was chief 
of the captains, and he said, ^ Thine are we, 
David, and on thy side, thou son of Jesse; 
peace, peace be unto thee, and peace be to 



MAKING DAVID KING. 137 

thine helpers, for thy God helpeth thee."' 
So Christ wants loyal friends : loyal not only 
to Him, but loyal to His people, too. Their 
cry was not only, peace be unto thee, but 
peace be to thy helpers. 

6. Next, they were wise men (verse 32). 
' ' And of the children of Issachar, which 
were men that had understanding of the 
times to know what Israel ought to do." 
And so our King wants wise men to-day; 
men that do not waste their strength in mis- 
guided efforts, men that are not fighting 
over old issues long since obsolete, or beat- 
ing the air with mere speculations and theo- 
ries that have no practical bearing, men of 
to-day that understand the Lord's mean- 
ing for our times and catch His thought for 
their generation, and are living for the work 
of the present hour. Such men, like the men 
of Issachar, have all their brethren at their 
command, and exert the sacred influences 
which control their minds and make them 
leaders of the great hosts of God. 

7. They were men that could keep rank 



138 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

(verse 33). That is, they were adjustable and 
congenial men, who could work in co-opera- 
tion with others; not narrow, bigoted and 
impracticable people, with whom nobody 
could work, as Christians sometimes are, but 
large-hearted, loving, humble workers, who 
knew their places, who took any place, who 
were not afraid to take the lowest place, who 
could obey orders as well as give them, who 
could walk in fellowship with other soldiers, 
who could keep step with other soldiers and 
maintain the unbroken rank in the host of 
God. God give us this Spirit! The nearer 
we are to God the less angular we will be, 
and the easier it will be to work with us. 

8. Again, they were single-hearted men 
(verse 33). '^ They were not of double heart. " 
Their whole heart was with David. Their 
whole interest was invested in his kingdom. 
Their whole being was given to his honor 
and advancement. And so we cannot be 
true soldiers for Christ unless we have given 
Him all our heart; and nothing can separate 
us from Him when we are utterly devoted 



MAKING DAVID KING. 139 

to His honor and interest, every other attach- 
ment and every other interest being subject 
to His highest will and glory, and eternally 
linked with His kingdom. "We cannot have 
our heart in the world that has no interest 
in Him and on things that must perish, but 
every part of our being is invested in His 
coming and His glory. 

This is also the meaning of the perfect 
heart referred to in verse 38. God give us 
such a spirit in the blessed work of hasten- 
ing the coming of our blessed Lord! 

Beloved, we are passing through the days 
of David's suffering and humiliation. He is 
not yet upon the throne of this world, al- 
though He has the right to reign, and a sure 
degree has been passed in heaven, ^'I have set 
my King upon my holy hill of Zion. " But He 
is now in the days of His obscurity, and the 
badge of His service is a cross and a crown. He 
is passing through the world and picking out 
His future princes, and testing them by their 
loyal devotion to His person and will. Oh, 
that we all may be true in these days, and 



140 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

honored with a part of the glory in that day ! 
It is said that the great Ivan of Eussia 
used to love to go among his people in dis- 
guise and test them. One night he went 
through the suburbs of his capital, and 
knocked at many lowly cabins as a. poor, 
wandering tramp, asking for a night's lodg- 
ing and a crust of bread. He was refused 
from door to door, until at last he came to a 
humble cabin, where a poor man was attend- 
ing his wife and new-born babe. He opened 
the door at the knock of the wanderer, 
kindly invited him in, treated him with 
courtesy and attention, gave him a rude bed 
and a humble supper, and bade him good- 
night v^th great kindness. The emperor lay, 
sleeping little and thinking much, and in 
the early morning he took his leave amid 
many thanks. Late in the afternoon the 
royal chariot drove to the door and halted. 
The poor man fled to the gate in great alarm, 
prostrated himself at the feet of his em- 
peror, and asked him if he had committed 
any crime to cause his displeasure. The em- 



MAKING DAVID KING. 141 

peror assured him it was all right, and then 
added, ^'I have simply come to thank you 
for your kindness to your emperor last night. 
He came in the disguise of a begger to test 
your love, and now he comes as your sover- 
eign to reward your loyalty. This bag of 
gold is for your new-born child. As he grows 
up I will adopt him as my child, and will 
give him a place of high and honorable serv- 
ice in the empire, and if I can be of any 
service to you and yours, command your 
emperor." 

So Christ is passing by to-day. So He is 
coming soon. The Lord help us to know 
Him and recei'^ e Him in His lowliness, and 
may ours be the joy in that day of receiving 
His smile and recognition in the midst of a 
dissolving world and a despairing multitude ! 



CHAPTER IX. 



CHRIST OUR HEAD. 



" And he is the head of the body, the church : who 
is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in 
all things he might have the preeminence. For it 
pleased the Father that in him should all fuUness 
dwell." Col. i: 18, 19. 

fHE human body is the paragon and crown 
of the material universe. It was the 
last thing that God ever created, and so sat- 
isfied was He with His glorious work that 
He chose this wondrous and beautiful temple 
for His own abode, and has made the form 
of man forevermore the embodiment of His 
own eternal Son. The fact that Jesus Christ 
is incarnate in a body like our own, has 
placed humanity on the pinnacle of creation 
and the throne of God. Forever and forever 
a wondering universe will come to behold 
their God, and will see Him in a form like 
yours and mine. It is little wonder, there- 



CHRIST OUR HEAD. 143 

fore, that this exquisite workmanship of God 
should be worthy of the honor and dignity 
conferred upon it, and should show in all its 
structures the works of iitfinite wisdom, 
power and love. Even David, long before 
the study of physiology had revealed the 
wonders of the human frame, could say, '^ I 
will praise thee, for I am fearfully and won- 
derfully made." How much more profound 
the wonder and praise that should fill our 
hearts as the progress of human knowledge 
enables us better to understand the exquisite 
and infinite skill displayed in the creation of 
a single member of our body ! 

Perhaps the most striking evidence of 
Christianity ever presented in Christian lit- 
erature was the Bridgewater treatise on the 
human hand, showing the delicate mechan- 
ism of the hundreds of bones, nerves, vessels, 
and the varied and perfect functions of the 
various parts of e en that little member. 
How much more delicate and perfect the 
structure of the human brain and the rela- 
tion of the head to all the physical organism 



144: THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

of the vital functions! This is the figure 
which the apostle uses to express the relation 
of Jesus Christ to His people and their mu- 
tual relationship to Him as the body of Christ. 
May His Spirit enable us to apply the beauti- 
f i.il figure in such a way that we shall be 
drawn closer to our living Head and to one 
another in Him! 

I. THE HEAD. 

] . In the human body the head is the seat 
of will and authority, and the body is obedi- 
ent to its volitions, and these commands are 
so simple and so instructive that the body 
obeys without an effort. It is perfectly nat- 
ural to follow the wishes of the head, so the 
Lord Jesus Christ our living Head, is the 
true Lord and sovereign of His people's lives, 
and it is the place of their bodies to be in- 
stinctively obedient to His every wish. If 
He is indeed our Head, it will be our second 
nature to do His bidding. Indeed, no other 
part of the body has any power to will, and 
none of Christ's children should have any 



CHRIST OUR HEAD. 145 

will apart from their Master's. There is a 
great difference between being guided by 
your own head or somebody else's If Christ 
is not your living Head you will not want 
His authority and government. Before, 
therefore, we can truly obey Him we must 
fully receive Him and so be united with Him 
that His interests are ours, and His will is 
just the expression of our inmost being. 
Beloved, is Christ our recognized and hon- 
ored Head, and is our life a glad and constant 
obedience to His every wish and prompting ? 
2. In the human body the head is the 
source and seat of life, and so the Lord Jesus 
is the source of His people's life. There is 
no life apart from the head, and we have 
none apart from Him. Our regeneration 
comes through the quickening power of His 
life, our sanctification is His indwelling in us. 
Our physical life may be made manifest in 
the flesh. We are dependent upon Him for 
our fruit, for our joy, for our love, for all 
our spiritual grace and experiences, and He 
loves to impart His life to us and fill us more 



146 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

abundantly if we will but receive it. We 
are not held responsible for our own life. We 
are not expected to manufacture either faith 
or love, but to receive from Him life and 
love, and the grace that He is ever longing 
to impart. 

3. The head is the source of sensation. All 
feeling comes from the brain, and resides in 
it. When you hurt your hand it is not your 
hand that feels, but your head, although it 
seems to be in your members. Beautiful 
parable of the sympathy of our living Head! 
Every sorrow and pain we feel is instinct- 
ively telegraphed to Him, and touches His 
living heart to the quick, '' For we have not 
an high priest who is not able to be touched 
with the feeling of our infirmities." When 
Paul was outraging the saints of God, and 
compelling them to blaspheme the name of 
Jesus under penalty of death, the voice of 
the Master called to Him from heaven, ''Saul,' 
Saul, why persecutest thou me ? " He was 
hurting, not others, but the Master's heart. 
The heavenly head was suffering for the 



CHRIST OUR HEAD. 147 

earthly "members. The hurt hand was com- 
municating its pain to the head in heaven. 
How quickly the head sends relief to the 
suffering hand or foot! Have you ever 
noticed when you receive a blow or are 
pierced with a thorn, how quickly all the 
blood in the body rushes to the injured 
place, and it flushes with the crimson tide ? 
It simply means that the brain has become 
concerned for the suffering member, and has 
ordered all the resources of the system on 
duty, and every drop of blood in the body is 
coursing to the sore place to give it a touch 
of relief. What you call an inflammation is 
just the effort of nature through increased 
circulation to lave away the intruding pain 
and stimulate and quicken the system to 
throw it off. 

So Christ is ever nearest the sad heart, 
the tempted child, the wandering one, and 
all the resources of His grace are at our serv- 
ice in every time of need. 

When Margaret Wilson was standing tied 
to a stake on Solway Beach, for the tide to 



148 THE n'AMes Of JE^tf^. 

come in and take her martyred life, thej 
placed an older saint farther down the beach 
that little Margaret might see the saintly 
woman die before her turn should come, 
and thus be dissuaded by terror from her 
bold testimony to Jesus, but as the cruel 
waves leaped on Margaret McLaughlin and 
trampled out her life, and the rough soldier 
by Margaret Wilson's side asked, hoping to 
turn her back from her purpose even at the 
last, '^What do you think of that r' she 
meekly answered, ' ' I think I see Christ in 
one of His members suffering there." How 
beautiful ! How true ! 

When the pressure seems intolerable, when 
sorrow gnaws the heart, and Satan hurls his 
arrows of flame into our quivering spirit, 
when the world opposes us as it once did 
Him, and flesh and heart are ready to faint 
and fail, it is just Christ in one of His mem- 
bers suffering there, and the living Head 
will not fail nor foi-get to help the suffering 
member, and will also help us in the matter 
of religious feeling. All sensation must 



CHRIST OUR HEAD. 149 

come from the brain, and so all spiritual 
feeling must come from Christ. Let us not, 
therefore, try to work up our feelings, but 
keep close to Him, and the tides of His love 
will flow into our consciousness and spiritual 
sensibilities. The secret of joy and love sim- 
ply lie in nearness to Jesus, and His joy and 
love will spring within us from the Head. 
The most artless and spontaneous life will 
ever be the best. Oftentimes He may wish 
us to be quiescent. Let us be acquiescent in 
this, and when He rests in His love, let us 
rest with Him, and when He rejoices over 
us with singing, let us swell the chorus in 
glad response, our hearts keeping time to 
His, as the sand upon the ocean shore is wet 
or dry as the ocean tide rises and falls in the 
sea below. 

4. The head is the seat of power, and so 
Christ is His people's power. We are not 
sti'ong in ourselves ; but He is our strength. 
' ' All power is given unto me in heaven and 
in earth, and lo I am with you always." 
"Ye shall receive the power of the Holy 



150 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

Ghost coming upon you." This, therefore, 
is the secret of effective service. You shall 
always feel the power which does not reside 
in you, but as you go forth obedient to the 
orders of the Head, the Head will follow up 
your obedient steps and render effectual your 
service. Christ never sends His people on 
any ministry without equipping them, sus- 
taining them, and rendering their work ef- 
fectual. Your usefulness does not depend 
upon natural gifts nor conditions, but upon 
your closeness to your Head. 

A very humble Christian ever filled with 
Jesus will so speak, so look, so grasp your 
hand, so do the commonest things of life, 
that strange and everlasting forces will spring 
from the act and touch hearts on every side. 
A very small wire filled with electricity will 
make everybody conscious of strange power. 
The other day all the horses became greatly 
excited at a certain point of the street, and 
reared and plunged as they came near. The 
reason was that there was electricity in the 
ground. A wire had become detached and 



CHRIST OUR HEAD. 151 

they knew the strange power was ready to 
upheave the pavement. They could have 
walked over the wire harmlessly had it been 
dead, but it was connected with the dynamo 
in yonder works, and drew all its strength 
from the headquarters. It is a glorious and 
mighty thing to stand among men and be 
conscious that you have the authority and 
power of the Almighty, and that He is charg- 
ing your messages with a weight and re- 
sponsibilty which will meet those men in the 
judgment, and which will move and influ- 
ence their whole earthly life whether they 
hear or whether they forbear. 

5. The head is the seat of thought, intelli- 
gence, judgment, direction, knowledge. So 
Christ is our wisdom, our guide, our mind. 
We need not think so much, or rather He 
will think in us His thoughts, if we suspend 
our judgment, and draw upon His glorious 
mind for our knowledge, our light, our views, 
our opinions and plans. It is not the busi- 
ness of the hand to be planning and thinking, 
but simply to go forward at the bidding of 



152 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

the brain, and so He has said to us, ' ' Take 
no anxious thought for the morrow. Your 
Heavenly Father knoweth that you have 
need of these things." ^^ Casting all your 
care upon Him, for He careth for you. " 

5. The head is the seat of honor, glory, 
and beauty. It supports the lovely face. It 
crowns the glorious temple. It is borne aloft 
in dignity and majesty, and in all things has 
the pre-eminence. It wears the crown of 
royalty, or the wreath of beauty, and is the 
expression and embodiment of dignity and 
pre-eminence. So Jesus Christ is the glory 
of His people, the crowned Head of His 
church and the One to whom alone belong 
all dominion, praise and love for ever and 
ever. To Him, not to us, belongs the honor. 
He is our Head and our glory, and He for- 
ever shall receive the many crowns of all His 
dear ones whose joy it shall be to lay them 
at His feet, or heap them upon His head. 
AU His richest blessings must lead us from 
them to Him, All His dearest children must 
be but links and channels to lift our hearts 



CHRIST OUR HEAD. 153 

to Him from whom comes all love and all 
loveliness in earth or heaven. 

n. THE BODY. 

The body is as necessary as the head. A 
bodiless head would be as abnormal as a 
headless body, and so our blessed Lord needs 
us as much as we need Him. He has sep- 
arated Himself from His old place of abso- 
lute Deity, and chosen for His inheritance 
His people, and without them His life is 
incomplete. All the gifts that He has re- 
ceived from the Father need an outlet, and 
we are the channels through whom they find 
expression and development. His love to 
men. His purpose to redeem them. His grace 
and power can only reach them through our 
intervention, and when we are not at His 
bidding and open to His influence. He is 
paralyzed in His purpose and baffled in His 
designs, like a man whom we have known, 
whose brain was full of magnificent energy 
and purpose, and whose heart was throbbing 
with boundless love, but whose limbs were 



154 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

paralyzed, and whose hands were Hmp and 
dead, and his body refusing to perform the 
wishes of his brain and clogging and depress- 
ing him with its helplessness, his love all 
vain because of the want of harmony and 
the lack of correspondence between the body 
and the head. 

Christ has been hindered for eighteen cen- 
turies by the paralyzed, disjointed, diseased 
condition of many members of His body, 
and the work accomplished by the church 
has been limited by the fact that to so great 
an extent the body has been diseased and 
enfeebled in many of its parts. Oh, what 
might not be realized in a few days for the 
accompHshment of redemption if the entire 
body of Christ, without an exception, were 
open to the love of the Head, and obedient 
to all His wishes and will. Pentecost would 
be repeated with a multiplication as vast as 
the difference between the one hundred and 
twenty millions of Christians to-day and the 
one hundred and twenty brethren in the 
upper room. There are a miUion times as 



CHRIST OUR HEAD. 155 

many members in the body to-day as there 
were then, but the very number restrains 
the body all the more when they are not 
perfectly adjustable and responsive to the 
head. Will you remember, beloved, that 
Jesus needs you, and that even if you be the 
weakest and smallest member, you have the 
power by becoming diseased and inflamed 
to spread disease through the whole body, 
even as the smallest finger on your hand can 
paralyze your hand by simply getting sick 
and sore ? 

Three things especially are emphasized by 
the apostle in his beautiful teaching about 
the body of Christ, namely : 

1. Its variety. '^We have many mem- 
bers in one body, and all members have not 
the same office, so we being many are one 
body in Christ." In your body there are 
more than two hundred bones, and in your 
whole body there are thousands of constitu- 
ent elements. Every one is necessary. The 
very diversity of those members is your 
strength. Members of the church of Christ 



156 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

are not all alike. The greater the diversity 
the more their power. Each of us has our 
natural individuality, and this is the element 
through which God moulds our spiritual life 
and our life plans. He has made each of us 
for a certain place and service, and the very 
things that constitute our personal identity 
are the things He wants to use in us. 

Sometimes our very eccentricities are ele- 
ments of force when consecrated to God and 
baptized with the Holy Ghost. Sometimes 
the very facts of your previous history, even 
your sins and errors, become features which 
God can utilize for His kingdom. Do not, 
therefore, criticise your peculiarities. They 
are the very things God wants, if they be 
not defects. Your very littleness may just 
fit you for the place He wants you to fill. 
In making up a body He sometimes wants a 
finger only or a single hair. Now if you 
were a thumb, or a glowing eye, you would 
be needless, because, you see, there are 
enough of these already, and you are just 
required to fit into your place and functions. 



CHRIST OUR HEAD. 157 

Do not criticise in others their idiosyncrasies, 
as yon are pleased to call them, for in the 
body there are some curious members, 
and the apostle says that those that have 
least honor, to them God has given more 
abundant honor, and the time often comes 
when those obscure and uncongenial persons 
become, perhaps, the greatest blessings of 
your life, and draw you to them as the Lord 
Himself. 

2. Unity. These diversities may all be 
blended and kept by a common band of 
love and life in Jesus. If completely united, 
the very diversity adds greatly to the scope 
and influence of the church of Christ. On 
the field of Gettysburg a little pool of blood 
was found, into which flowed five tiny 
streams, and when the men from whose 
wounds the life tides were issuing w^ere 
found, they proved to be the sons of different 
races, so that in that httle crimson pool the 
heart of a German, a Frenchman, an Irish- 
man, a Negro and an American were all 
blending; and it had but one color and one 



158 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

meaning, the love of country that was not 
afraid to die. If Christ's love is in our 
heart all differences become small. A creed 
will not unite us, a work will not unite us, 
a love, and a love only, can. Closeness to 
Jesus brings closeness to each other. The little 
birdlings that are always nestling against 
the mother's bosom are always pushing 
against each other, and if you and I deter- 
mine to be nearer to Jesus, we shall never be 
far apart. A lack of unity in the body is 
fatal to health and power. An obstructive 
joint will bring rheumatism and paralysis. 
The reason to-day that the power of the Holy 
Ghost is so limited is because the interflow 
and the outway of the Hfe of Christ are hin- 
dered by the divisions of Christianity, and 
still more by the lack of heart-oneness to 
Him. 

3. Relationship. We owe to each other 
certain mutual obligations expressed by the 
phrase, ^^ fitly joined together and compacted 
by that which every joint supplieth. " While 
every member of the body sustains a rela- 



CHRIST OUR HEAD. 159 

tionship in some sense to every other, yet 
some are closer than others, and in those in- 
timate relationships there must be perfect 
freedom, fellowship and holy activity. The 
joint and the socket must move together 
without friction. The least friction will pro- 
duce inflammation, irritation, pain, disease, 
paralysis. God adjusts us to each other by 
His Providence and Spirit, and He will en- 
able us to recognize our relationships, to 
meet them, and to fulfill them perfectly with 
holy wisdom and love. Each of us sustains 
many relationships, but the Holy Spirit in 
us will adjust us to each with a perfect free- 
dom and delicacy, so that we shall love one 
another in Christ in the places where we 
belong, with a heart as free as heaven and 
as pure as Christ Himself. You shall have 
a boundless love for each of God's children, 
each in his place. You will love your fam- 
ily, your children, your friends, your brother 
in Christ, each in his or her place with per- 
fect simplicity of heart, and yet without a 
jar in the various relationships, for if Christ 



160 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

is abiding in us He will adjust us to every 
relationship even as He Himself meets each 
of His members with the fullness of His 
heart, and yet the special adaptation of each 
one is what their situation requires. 

The recognizing of our oneness with Christ 
will make us considerate of one another, and 
will give to our duty to each other a higher 
sacredness, inasmuch as it affects the whole 
body and the Head Himself. When you hin- 
der or hurt a single brother, you hurt the 
whole body just the same as in your physical 
body a jar in one part will hinder. And not 
only so, you will come to recognize the nec- 
essity of being right with God, for otherwise 
you may hinder the entire work of Christ. 
It does not need for a man to be sick all over 
to be helpless. A single weak organ will 
render him helpless, and so, if you choose, 
you can, by becoming an irritation and an 
offense, arrest and obstruct all Grod's work 
to a certain extent. Of course, there is pro- 
vision in the human body for getting rid of 
such a member, and sometimes the only 



CHRIST OUR HEAD. 161 

thing is to cut it off ; and so God has the 
same provision for His church, and He will 
separate you from His people if you are not 
willing to work with them in harmony and 
holiness. And yet excision always leaves a 
scar, and often a lack. The law of love and 
the desire of the Master is that we should be 
so true to Him and to each other that He 
can accomplish in us and through us His 
highest purposes of love and blessing. It 
will help us infinitely in our relationship 
with people to recognize them in Christ and 
not in themselves. Then our love to them 
may not be personal and selfish, but will be 
heavenly and holy. Then also we shall be 
enabled to love what naturally we could not 
even tolerate. 

Oh, we little know the depths and heights 
of joy and power that lie hidden in recogniz- 
ing the mystery of the body of Christ, and 
Christ Himself in all His members! Then 
our service will be all unto Him, and a cup 
of cold water given to a disciple for Jesus' 
sake will bring a great reward, and some 



162 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

day the Master will say, ^^Ye did it unto 
me." Then also it will be found that the 
simplest and humblest services have been of 
the greatest value, even as the poor old 
widow in ancient Constantinople that could 
only sprinkle the grass upon the rough stones 
as they dragged them to the temple, is rep- 
resented in the old legend as having her 
name inscribed on the front of the Cathedral 
in letters of gold traced by an angel's hand, 
^'This house the widow Eudoxia built for 
God." 

Then also will we know the exceeding joy 
of doing much of our work through others, 
and doing the rest almost unconsciously and 
impersonally until the day comes when He 
will trace each constituent, and give to each 
his proportionate reward. I am so glad to feel 
that in that day most of my work for the 
Lord will be rewarded to others who have 
helped me oftentimes by sprinkling grass for 
the rough stones, and making it easier where 
it would have been so hard, but for the love 
and prayers of God's dear children. God is 



CHRIST OUR HEAD. - 163 

preparing His church for the most glorious 
spectacle the universe has ever beheld, in 
that crowning day when the whole of crea- 
tion will be summoned to gaze upon the face 
of the bride, the Lamb's wife, and as they 
gaze they will see not only the face of the 
Bride in all the beauty of her myriad- fold 
individuality, but as the unity and light of 
all the phases of the Lamb Himself reflected 
in them all, and, while it will be a picture of 
glorified humanity, it will be still more a 
picture of the Son of Man. 

A dear friend has given me this beautiful 
illustration suggested by a single painting. 
Here is a woman's face. It is loveliness 
itself, as its features are traced upon the can- 
vas in the soft, vivid light of Italian art. 
There is the perfect form, the warm color, 
the modest yet noble brow, the rich tresses 
of hair, the expression of loveliness, the re- 
pose and strength of character, all seeming 
to speak with the light of life itself. Such 
is the picture as you see it at a distance, but 
when you come a little closer a strange 



164 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

transformation takes place. Making up that 
one face you see a hundred other faces and 
objects, and you find that it is a composite 
painting' made up of many minutiae, so 
shaded and compounded that at a distance 
the combined effect was that of a single face, 
but at closer inspection it is a cluster of many 
objects. There, forming the rich color of the 
lips, are exquisitely shaded flowers, the hair 
is formed of trailing vines and grasses, little 
faces of beautiful children fit into the coun- 
tenance, rich clusters of fruit the eye, and all 
blended together in infinite diversity and yet 
perfect unison. 

Such will be the face that this universe 
will yet behold. Jesus, shining in all, all in 
all. Your face will be there, in perfect iden- 
tity, and yet blended in the soft light of His 
countenance, and reflecting the radiance of 
His smile. So let us abide in Him and grow 
up together into Him, until we shall see the 
fullness of the stature of Christ Jesus. 



CHAPTER X. 



OUR HORN OF SALVATION. 



"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath 
visited and redeemed His people, and hath raised up 
a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant 
David; as He spake by the mouth of His holy 
prophet, which have been since the world began; that 
we should be saved from our enemies, and from the 
hand of all that hate us; to perform the mercy prom- 
ised to our fathers, and to remember His holy cove- 
nant; the oath which He sware to our Father Abra- 
ham, that He would grant unto us, that we being de- 
livered out of the hand of our enemies might serve 
Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness be- 
fore Him all the days of our life." Luke i: 68-75. 

^ACHARIAS, the father of John the 
^ Baptist and the author of this song, was 
practically the last of the priesthood. Be- 
cause of his priestly office he was chosen to 
be the father of John the Baptist, and thus, 
both directly and through his son, the wit- 
ness of the coming dispensation and the 
Messiah. God so ordered it that Judaism 



166 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

bore witness to Christ, although Judaism 
was afterwards to reject Christ notwith- 
standing its own testimony. True to the 
spirit of Judaism, when the message came 
to Zacharias about the birth of his son, his 
unbehef refused to accept it, and God visited 
him with dumbness and silence until the 
birth of John. The silence of Zacharias was 
significant of the silence that was to fall on 
Judaism as she gave place to the testimony 
of Christ and sank back into silence at His 
feet, while all heaven proclaimed, ^^ This is 
my beloved Son; hear ye Him." 

How different the spirit of Mary, when 
the message came to her requiring even 
greater faith! More truly she represented 
the spirit of Christianity. She implicitly be- 
lieved it, and her answer was, ^^ Behold the 
handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me ac- 
cording to thy word." But at length Zacha- 
rias' lips were opened at the circumcision 
of his son, and with this last song his voice 
died away with the voice of Judaism into 
eternal silence. There is a beautiful bird 



OUR HORN OF SALVATION. 167 

which has but one song, and that its own 
death dirge. After silently sailing the wa- 
ters for its whole life long, the beautiful 
swan at last, on the bosom of some peaceful 
lake, perhaps as the shadows of evening are 
falling and darkness is passing over its sim- 
ple brain, opens its mouth, and pours out the 
strangest, saddest song that ever fell upon 
the ear, and then its beautiful, graceful neck 
relaxes, and it sinks upon the waves in the 
silence of death. It has breathed its hfe out 
in its one last song. So Zacharias passes out 
of view with his own song, but it was a song 
worthy to be lost in, for it is the key-note of 
redemption, and yet shall re-echo in the song 
of Moses and the Lamb. There are three 
strains in it; like all great songs, extremely 
simple, but swelHng out into infinite echoes 
of glory and blessing. 

I. '^HE HATH VISITED HIS PEOPLE." 

We love to receive the letter of our friend, 
but how much more the friend himself! 
Sweet is the message of affection, but 



168 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

sweeter the visit of our loved ones! The 
glory of Zacharias' song was that Grod was 
about to visit His people. This was the cry 
of Moses, ' ' If thy presence go not with us, 
carry us not up hence, for wherein shall we 
differ from all the other people of the earth, 
except it be that thou go with us." Not even 
an angel's presence would satisfy or fill the 
place, none but God Himself. This was the 
burden of all Isaiah's wondrous promises. 
The Lord Himself shall come to visit His 
people. This is the pre-eminent glory of re- 
demption. God Himself has undertaken it. 
The Eternal One has come to our world in 
person, and identified Himself forever with 
humanity. 

1. It tells the story of the incarnation. 
''The Word was made flesh, and dwelt 
among us, and we beheld His glory, the 
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, 
full of grace and truth." He has come into 
our house of clay, and He has come to stay, 
and to the latest ages of eternity, as genera- 
tion after generation shall visit the metrop- 



OUR HORN OF SALVATION. 169 

olis of the universe, and lift up their eyes to 
look upon God, they shall see the face of a 
man, a form like our own, God' in the hke- 
ness of humanity. He has come so near to 
us that He has come into our own nature. 
'^Forasmuch then as the children are 
partakers of flesh and blood, He also Him- 
self likewise took part of the same; that 
through death He might destroy him that 
hath the power of death. For verily He took 
not on Him the nature of angels; but He 
took on Him the seed of Abraham. Where- 
fore it behooved Him in all things to be 
made like unto His brethren, that He might 
be a faithful and merciful high priest in 
things. pertaining to God." 

When Vanderkemp went to South Africa 
as a missionary, he proved his sympathy 
with the people, not only by living among 
them, but by marrying a Hottentot girl. 
He came down into their very life, and 
united his being with their degraded race to 
let them know that he was part of them. 
So Christ has wedded Himself forever to 



170 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

humanity, and never can be separated from 
us any more then we can separate ourselves 
from our ov^n bodies. When the first mis- 
sionaries went to St. Thomas, they could 
not get near the suffering and degraded 
slaves until they took part m their bondage, 
and asked the masters to make them slaves 
also. Then they were received with perfect 
confidence, and were able to bring multitudes 
of the poor savages to Christ. They trusted 
them when they saw that they had become 
identified with their own very life and lot. 
'^Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He 
hath visited His people. " 

2. But He comes closer. These mission- 
aries could work by the side of the slave; 
but they could not come into their hearts. I 
can sit down and talk with you in your 
home; but I cannot walk into your brain 
and into your spirit, and put my being into 
yours, so that you shall have my thoughts 
and feelings and life. In some measure love 
can impart almost its own soul to the beloved 
one, and yet only in a faint measure com- 



OUR HORN OF SALVATION. l7l 

pared with the great and divine example 
which Christ has forever set us; for He hath 
not only visited our race, but He hath vis- 
ited our hearts, and made our very bodies 
His temple and home. ^' With this man will 
I dwell" saith the High and Holy One that 
inhabiteth eternity, ^' Even with him that is 
humble and of a contrite spirit, and who 
tremble th at my word." ''I will dwell in 
them, and walk in them, and they shall be 
my people and I will be their God." 

Has He visited you, beloved? Has He come 
into this brain and possessed all its thoughts, 
and given to you His light and wisdom. His 
understanding and mind? Has He come in- 
to this will and taken the key of the cham- 
ber from which all the acts and purposes of 
your lives are directed? Has He been ad- 
mitted to the boudoir chamber of your con- 
fidences, where only your dearest ones ever 
come, and does He control all your heart's 
affections, and supremely hold them for Him- 
self, so that you have no life apart from Him? 
Has He found His way without restraint 



172 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

into every inmost apartment, until you find 
they are being enlarged by His ministry, and 
filled in every capacity with His love and life, 
as He thinks in you, trusts in you, wills in 
you, loves in you, rejoices in you, speaks in 
you, prays in you, praises in you, and pours 
out through your whole being the fullness of 
His life; not a transient visitor, but a perpet- 
ual Guest. Oh! how much He will do for the 
heart that thus receives Him! 

Happy for the loving w^oman of Shunem the 
day that Elisha passed her door, that she re- 
ceived him in the name of the Lord, and 
made him welcome to her home and her 
heart. Little did she dream that it was go- 
ing to bring her in the coming years deliv- 
erance from her sorrows and her trials, the 
child of her affection, and that child a second 
time restored from death itself. What care 
He will take of the house that He owns and 
lives in! How He will love to heal and 
strengthen and beautify and glorify the tem- 
ple of His indwelling, and what infinite rest 
it is to live with Christ in His own house, 



OUR HORN OF SALVATION. 1Y3 

and have Him bear all the burdens and re- 
sponsibilities, while you dwell a happy guest 
in the house that you once called your own. 
3. And then He is coming in a little while 
on a still more glorious visit, with sound of 
trumpet and mighty processions of angels 
and ransomed men, while earth and heaven 
shall signal His glorious advent by signs and 
wonders such as the universe has never be- 
held. It is said that the great Ivan of Eussia 
loved to go in disguise among his people, 
calling often late at night at some humble 
cabin in the character of a poor wayfarer, 
and watching to see how they received him. 
If a welcome was given, as it often was, by 
some poor and suffering family, who shared 
with him their last crust, and gave him shel- 
ter in their poorly-heated dwelling, it was 
very likely to happen that a few days later 
the royal chariot would drive up to that door, 
with the outriders and footmen, and all the 
splendid pageant of royalty, while the em- 
peror himself stepped from his chariot, and 
entering the humble door, caUed for the 



174 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

kind and loving person that had received 
him in his obscurity, and asking perhaps the 
name of the youngest child, would say, ' ' I 
have adopted this child as the child of the 
emperor. Here is a purse of money for its 
immediate use. I shall educate it, and al- 
ways be your friend and reward and honor 
you, because you received your emperor 
when you knew not but that he was a per- 
son like yourselves." 

So, beloved, the King of Kings is passing 
by these days of time, a lowly man, and a 
wayfarer He asks a sacrifice of you. He 
asks a welcome from you. He asks the key 
of your heart's inmost chamber. Will you 
trust Him? The day is coming when it will 
be much to have one glance from His glo- 
rious face, to have Him recognize you among 
the myriads of the resurrection and say, 
''Come my little child, and sit with me on 
my throne, and share my kingdom; for on 
earth you received me, and even so do I now 
welcome you.'' Yes, He is coming again to 
visit our earth, and to leave it no more. 



OUR HORN OF SALVATION. 175 

'^Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men," 
will be the announcement of that glad day, 
'^and He will dwell with them, and God 
Himself shall be with them, and they shall 
see His face, and His name shall be written 
in their foreheads, and there shall be no night 
there." And even when the glad Millennial 
age is ended, it will expand into a gladder and 
better time, and the new heavens shall be 
added to the new earth, and redeemed hu- 
manity shall colonize over all this great 
universe, and we may have stars for king- 
doms, and worlds for our inheritance. Then 
shall we sing as we cannot now, ^' Blessed be 
the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited 
His people." 

II. "he hath redeemed his people." 

This is much more. That Moravian mis- 
sionary could stoop to the lowly condition 
of the heathen of St. Thomas; but he could 
not set them free. He could die with them 
in their chains; but he could not break the 
fetters. But Jesus not only visited His peo- 



176 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

pie, but He hath redeemed them. He hath 
given His own freedom for ours, and the 
ransom suffices, and the great manifesto has 
gone forth. "The Spirit of the Lord God is 
upon me, for He hath sent me to preach de- 
hverance to the captives, to set at hberty 
them that are oppressed." This word re- 
deemed is the characteristic term of the gos- 
pel. It speaks of the crimson tint of sin and 
the deeper crimson of Calvary's blood. It 
teUs of a heaven that has cost something, a 
salvation that is established on the eternal 
principles of justice and righteousness, that 
has met every claim of law and right, and 
placed the ransomed soul in as good a posi- 
tion as if he had never sinned. 

AU human hearts have an instinct that 
such a redemption was demanded. The rud- 
est savage is conscious that some propitia- 
tion must be made for sin, and that evil 
cannot be lightly passed over even by 
clemency, without some satisfaction. When 
the proud and haughty Tarquin sat upon the 
bench to judge his own son, with the Eoman 



OUR HORN OF SALVATION. 177 

instincts of justice he could not acquit him. 
When the mother pleaded for her boy with 
bitter tears, and brothers and sisters claimed 
his life, and the citizens who loved him inter- 
ceded, the father could only answer, ^' The 
father loves him as much as you, but the 
judge must punish him," and to the lictors 
he was delivered without mercy, to be beaten 
and slain, because law and justice could 
know no mercy. 

Very beautifully have the Hindu legends 
embodied this truth, and at the same time 
foreshadowed the mystery of the gospel 
through which love has triumphed over jus- 
tice, and yet has left justice uncompromised 
and vindicated. In the ancient Hindu le- 
gends there is a story of a poor sinner 
pursued by the spirit of retribution in the 
form of a demon. Flying from its pursuer, 
and about to be overtaken, the sinful spirit 
cried to Vishnu, the goddess of Mercy, for 
help, and she immediately changed the fugi- 
tive into a dove. With a glad cry of gratitude 
the dove swept up into the air, striking her 



178 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

wings upon the firmament and bore away 
above her pursuer, thanking her kind dehv- 
erer. But a moment later the demon had 
been changed into a hawk, and lo, she 
found herself pursued by a stronger wing 
and a swifter flight than her own, and she 
was about to be struck down by the cruel 
talons of the hawk, when suddenly she lifted 
up her prayer again to Vishnu, and the god- 
dess opened her bosom as an asylum for the 
fluttering dove, and folded her wings about 
her as she lay there secure from her enemy. 
Then the hawk approached the goddess and 
demanded his prey. '' She is mine," he said, 
^^by every right of justice. You, Vishnu, 
have declared and know, sin must be pun- 
ished, and that I am entitled to my victim, 
and I demand her life or its equivalent." 
Vishnu answered, ^' I recognize your claim. 
Her life you cannot have, but you may have 
as much of mine as will be its equivalent." 
And with that she opened her bosom to the 
devourer, and bade him thrust his fierce 
beak and talons into her quivering flesh un- 



OUR HORN OF SALVATION. l79 

till he had torn from her breast as much as 
he would have consumed if he had devoured 
the little dove. Satisfied^ he withdrew, and 
the trembling dove looked upon the bleeding 
breast, and knew what its life had cost its 
deliverer : and as it floated away a little 
later, with the stain of blood upon its 
wings, it never could forget what its re- 
demption had meant. Beloved, you and I 
were that dove. Justice pursued us with 
every claim of right. Even God could not 
forego its claim, but must execute it or 
cease to be God; but the blessed Eedeemer 
opened His bosom, gave His life and blood 
to meet the claim, bore the judgment we 
deserved, and now sprinkled with this 
precious blood, we sing, ''Unto Him that 
loved us, and washed us from our sins in 
His own blood, be dominion and glory, now 
and forever." ''Worthy is the Lamb that 
was slain to receive honor and power and 
riches and glory and blessing." "Thou 
hast redeemed us with thy blood, and hast 
made us unto God kings and priests." 



180 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

'^Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He 
hath visited and redeemed His people." 

III. HE HATH RAISED UP AN HORN OF 
SALVATION FOR US. 

Salvation is the fruition of redemption. 
Eedemption purchases it, salvation realizes 
it and brings it into our actual experience. 
It is not the salvation Zacharias speaks so 
much of as the "horn of salvation." This 
bold figure, perhaps, originated in primitive 
times, v^hen mighty hunters, like Nimrod, 
returning from the chase, loved to grace 
their tents w^ith the splendid horns of the 
animals they had slain, the antlers of the 
deer, the tusks of the elephant, and the 
horn, perhaps, of the mighty rhinoceros. 
And so the vrord '^ horn "came to be the 
figure of beauty, power and dominion. It 
has passed into the imagery of inspired 
prophecy and song, so that we find the 
earthly powers described by Daniel and 
John as horns upon the head of the beast. 

And so we find the Psalmist speaking of 



OUR HORN OF SALVATION. 181 

Grod as his Horn of Salvation and his High 
Tower. In speaking, therefore, . of Christ 
as a horn of salvation, Zacharias meant to 
emphasize the glory and beauty of the 
Saviour, His supreme and universal do- 
minion, and His infinite and divine power. 
It is Coronation, singing, ^^^ring forth the 
royal diadem, and crown Him Lord of all." 
The verse that follows explains this thought 
more perfectly than any words of ours can 
do. This glorious salvation does five things 
for us. 

1. It delivers us from all our enemies. 
Christ has come to overcome everything 
that is against us. Never does He want us 
to be crushed or defeated. Always He 
causeth us to triumph, if we will but trust 
and allow Him. How beautifully does the 
prophet Zachariah illustrate the words of 
his New Testament namesake, as in his first 
chapter he gives us his vision of the four 
horns, horns that were lifted up against 
Judah and Jerusalem, representing the evils 
that are opposed to us from all sides, so that 



182 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

whichever direction we look, north, south, 
east or west, we sometimes can see nothing 
but enemies. But lo ! he sees following the 
four horns four carpenters, and as he asks 
the meaning of this vision he is told that 
these were come to fray the horns, that is, 
to soften them, -to peel them down, to take 
their sharpness from them, to render them 
harmless. 

How wondrously does God do this for His 
people ! How He takes the point out of the 
devil's sting and the enemies' sword-thrust, 
and quenches all the fiery darts of the 
wicked one with the shield of faith, so that 
things that seemed sufficient to destroy us 
pass harmlessly away, and we wonder in 
great amazement at the providential good- 
ness of our wonderful God. Each of us has 
often had enough perils to wreck our life and 
work many a time, but as we look behind we 
cannot even trace a shadow of the clouds 
that once covered all our sky, and every- 
thing that seemed against us has become a 
voice in the chorus, ^^We know that all 



OUR HORN OF SALVATION. 183 

things work together for good to them that 
love God." 

2. After being dehvered from our enemies 
'Hhat we might serve Him without fear." 
Our fears are sometimes worse than our ene- 
mies. Who of us is there that has not spent 
hours and days fighting clouds that never 
came to rain or lightning. They seemed in- 
tensely real, and they hurt as much as if they 
were real. Christ comes to deliver us from all 
our fears. He tells us that the king of fear is 
the devil, and that fear from him must al- 
ways be recognized. As long as we abide in 
Christ, it is a voice from Satan. If it is a 
voice from Satan it is always a lie, therefore 
it is not to be allowed to come into the soul. 
Indeed, we may turn it into a benediction, 
and say to Satan as he holds up the shadow, 
" Thank you very much, for now I know 
that the opposite is coming — a blessing as 
glorious as the shadow has been dark." 
This is the way to get the victory over your 
fears. Refuse them and extract good out of 
them, even as the woman of Canaan did 



184 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

from her Saviour's refusal, and from the 
dark and discouraging prospect that for a 
time seemed to overshadow all her case. 
God cannot use you fully in His service if 
you are loaded down with a pack of worries. 
You must be rested workers. You must 
come to Him for rest and then take His 
yoke upon you. 

3. All our sins. "In holiness and right- 
eousness before Him." You will observe 
that it is not righteousness and hohness, but 
holiness first. We begin often the wrong 
way, and try to get our lives right before our 
hearts are pure. Like Elisha, let us go up 
to the spring yonder, and put salt there, and 
not in the channels of the river below. 
Cleanse the fountain and the waters will al- 
ways be pure. Get the holiness of Christ in 
your heart, and your life will be regulated 
with the full tides of life and love. Divine 
life regulates itself, and the more it overflows 
the more it purifies. 

4. "All our days." We used to think that 
holiness and victory were for our last days, 



OUR HORN OF SALVATION. 185 

and that if we got too near to God we were 
being prepared to die, and might soon go; 
indeed, that it was not very safe to be to de- 
vout. But thank God, we have found that 
hohness is to live by, and that we need it for 
earth's duties and trials much more even 
than for heavenly enjoyments. Christ sanc- 
tifies us to serve Him without fear, in holi- 
ness and righteousness before Him all the 
days of our life. We can spring into the 
very fullness of His grace from the very 
morning of our conversion. We can go from 
Egypt to Canaan in less than three months; 
and need not spend forty years wandering 
in the wilderness of Sin. " Oh, if I only had 
known of this twenty-five years ago, how 
sweetly I could have lived," said the dying 
Payson as he stood in the last moments of 
his hfe looking into heaven, and realizing 
the full salvation that he might have known 
all his days. Beloved, shall we take him for 
all the days, and go forth singing, 

" I'm so glad that I've to learned to trust Him, 
Precious Jesus, Saviour, Friend; 



186 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

And I know that thou art with me, 
Wilt be with me to the end." 

There are two closing thoughts suggested 
by this figure, on which we shall dwell for 
a moment. In the blessing of Joseph in Deu- 
teronomy xxxiii; it is said that his horns 
shall be like the horns of the unicorn. The 
unicorn has only one horn, and the idea 
suggested by the strong figure is that they 
alone are strong who have no strength but 
God. The glory of my strength is to have 
God alone. God is never the fullness of 
power to us until He alone is our power, un- 
til we can say, '^Whom have I in heaven 
but thee, and there is none upon the earth 
that I desire apart from thee." 

The other reference is in connection with 
the sublime vision of the Lamb in the fifth 
chapter of Eevelation, where we behold 
Him standing in the midst of the throne 
having seven horns and seven eyes, repre- 
senting the seven -fold power and authority 
with which He is invested, and the seven- 
fold wisdom of the Holy Ghost which He 
administers. 



OUR HORN OF SALVATION. 187 

It is as the Lamb that He has the seven 
horns. It is because He suffered and re- 
deemed us that God has invested Him, not 
only with His own eternal deity and power, 
but with all the resources of the Father's 
own fullness, so that He could say as He as- 
cended from earth to heaven, ^^AU power 
is given unto me, in heaven and in earth." 
And yet that power is in the hands of one 
whom John describes as a ^'Little Lamb." 
Oh! the ineffable gentleness and nearness 
combined with majesty and power expressed 
by this figure. With a hand as soft as a 
child's, a touch as gentle as a mother's, and 
yet a sceptre as mighty as omnipotence. He 
sits 'on yonder throne, so near and yet so 
great, so tender and yet so mighty, the 
blended gentleness and almightiness of the 
Lamb that is in the midst of the throne. 

He is our horn of salvation. He hath vis- 
ited us and redeemed us, and He must reign 
until all our enemies shall be made His foot- 
stool. Let us join in the chorus that swells 
in this chapter in billows and billows of 



188 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

praise, surging and surging out to the con- 
fines of the universe until ^ 'every creature 
which is in heaven, and on the earth, and 
under the earth, and such as are in the sea, 
and all that are in them, are heard saying, 
blessing and honor, and glory and power be 
unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and 
unto the Lamb forever and ever." 




CHAPTER XI. 



THE KEY OF DAVID. 

"These things saith He that is holy, He that is 
true, He that hath the key of David, He that open- 
eth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man 
openeth." Rev. iii: 7. 

fHE seven Epistles to the Churches in 
Eevelation contain the last message of 
Christ to the church of to-day. It would 
seem very natural to suppose that the seven 
churches which He chose to receive these 
final messages were in some respect repre- 
sentative of the whole Catholic church to 
the end of time. They are singularly de- 
scriptive of the epochs that have passed 
over the church since the days of John. 
The first, the church in Ephesus perfectly 
represents the church of the days of John, 
strong in works, but beginning to decline in 
love. The next, Smyrna, is true to the life 



190 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

of the next age of Christianity, the age of 
persecution. The third, the church in 
Pergamos, has some strong resemblance to 
the worldly church of the days of Con- 
stantino and succeeding emperors. The 
church in Thyatira is almost a perfect type 
of the apostasy which followed through the 
rise of the Papacy, with that woman 
Jezebel on the throne and the depths of 
Satan beneath her seat of ecclesiastical pride 
and wickedness. Then comes the church 
in Sardis. '■ Thou hast a name that thou 
hvest and art dead." This is a sure and 
perfect type of the middle ages, and the 
absolute death of spiritual life, with the 
exception of a few names, even in Sardis, 
'^ Who had not defiled their garments." 

Then there is a sudden burst of light — 
the church of Philadelphia. This message 
is all promise, encouragement and love. 
It is the dawn of Reformation. It is the 
gathering out of the httle flock before the 
end. They have kept His word, they have 
not denied His name ; they shaU be kept 



THE KEY OF DAVID. 191 

through the hour of temptation and tribula- 
tion. They shall be established as pillars in 
the temple of God. They shall be enrolled 
in the New Jerusalem. They shall be re- 
ceived into the intimacy of Jesus. They 
shall have an open door which none can 
shut. There is one more picture, the church 
of the Laodiceans, strong, proud, wealthy, 
self- sufficient, lukewarm, and about to be 
rejected. This is the second apostasy. It 
is apostate Protestantism. It is the worldly 
church, which already in our day is begin- 
ning to show signs of this final portrait ; 
and with it comes the Master's hand upon 
the door, and the solemn warning, "I stand 
at the door and knock." The end is just 
about to come. But in the previous picture 
the end is also about to come, and the 
solemn message even there is, '^Behold, 
I come quickly. Hold fast that which thou 
hast, that no man take thy garment," so 
that these two pictures of Philadelphia and 
Laodicea both belong to the end. The one 
is the picture of the little flock of simple 



192 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

faithful ones; the other is the picture of the 
great worldly phurch contemporary with 
Philadelphia, and about to be rejected by 
the Lord at His coming. 

It is of this sixth picture of the little 
Philadelphian church that we wish to 
speak this morning, or rather of the Master 
in the attitude in which He addresses it, and 
the precious names He Himself assumes as 
He addresses to them His cheering message. 
There are three great and blessed names. 

I. HE THAT IS HOLY. 

1. He is holy, therefore He expects us to 
be holy; for His message is, "Be ye holy, 
for I am holy." He is our example, our 
standard, and we can never rest behind His 
footsteps. 

2. He is holy, therefore He enables us to 
be holy. His holiness is the source of ours, 
as well as the sanction and the ground of 
obhgation; for He gives us His own holi- 
ness. He enters our heart and becomes 
our life, and lives in us His own pure, 



THE KEY OF DAVID. 193 

heavenly life. Therefore the apostle has 
said, ''For both He that sanctifieth, and 
they that are sanctified are all of one, for 
which cause He is not ashamed to call them 
brethren." Therefore He Himself said in 
His own parting prayer, for their sakes I 
sanctify myself, that they also may be truly 
sanctified. " 

This did not mean that Christ required 
to be made holy, as if He were unholy, 
but He devoted Himself in the sense of 
entire consecration to this one thing, the 
sanctification of His people. He set Him- 
self apart for our sakes that we might be 
truly sanctified, as it reads in the margin; 
and as we receive Him to dwell within us 
we receive the sanctification. We receive 
the Holy One and He becomes our holiness, 
and is "made unto us of God sanctification 
and redemption." This is the secret of our 
holiness, to receive Him that is holy, to 
abide in Him that is holy, and to let Him 
live in us His own heavenly fife. 



194 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

II. HE THAT IS TRUE. 

This is the picture of the Faithful Prom- 
iser. It means His words are true. ^^ Hath 
He said, and shall He not do it ? Hath He 
spoken, and shall He not make it good." 
How many precious words of promise has 
He spoken. How many things has He 
spoken to us. How many has He to speak 
to us to-day. Earth and heaven shall pass 
away, but one jot or one tittle of His prom- 
ises shall in no wise pass away, until all be 
fulfilled. Every one of them has come to 
us with the mighty preface, '^Thus saith 
He that is true. " Let us rest in them, let 
us wait for them, for though they tarry, 
they shall surely come, and they shall not 
tarry too long. He Himself has endorsed 
them, and is their personal Guarantee. 

On an old mosque in Syria there is a 
strange and beautiful illustration of God's 
eternal and unchanging word. It was a 
Christian church and it had on its front, 
worked in the stone, the words of God, 
'' Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, 



THE KEY OP DAVID. 195 

and thy truth endureth to all generations. " 
When the Moslems conquered Palestme, 
they captured the old church, and plastered 
over the front, and in blazing and re- 
splendant letters of gold they wrote another 
inscription in honor of the false prophet. 
But as the centuries have gone by the 
plaster has fallen off. The transient record 
of human sin and pride has perished, and 
the deeply written record of God's Word 
stands out bold and clear, as a solemn in- 
timation that all men's works and words 
shall pass away, but the word of our God 
shall stand forever. 

But it means much more than this. Back 
of all is His own true heart. He Himself is 
true, our faithful unchangable Friend, and 
the Guarantee of the certainty and stability 
of everything that we value and hold in 
Him. God is much more to the Christian's 
faith than even His word. Abraham be- 
lieved God, and therefore He believed His 
word. It is because we can trust Him that 
we can trust His promises. How we value 



196 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

a true heart. How we rest in a faithful 
friend. How we love to lean on one that 
we know is loyal to the core. Christ is 
absolutely true. He loved us from the 
beginning. He will love us to the end. 
It is because He chose us knowing all, 
anticipating all, prepared for the worst that 
His love is everlasting. He is so true that 
He will 'keep us true. Think of some of the 
assurances of His faithfulness. He hath 
said, ' ' I will never leave nor forsake thee. ' ' 
God is faithful, by whom ye were called 
into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ. 
^^He will also confirm you to the end, 
that ye may be blameless in the day of 
Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who will not 
suffer you to be tempted above that which 
ye are able; but will, with the temptation, 
make also a way of escape; that ye may be 
able to bear it." ^'Wherefore, let them that 
suffer according to the will of God, commit 
the keeping of their souls to Him in well 
doing, as unto a faithful Creator." ^^The 
very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and 



I 



THE KEY OF DAVID. 197 

I pray God your whole spirit and soul and 
body be preserved blameless unto the coming 
of our Lord Jesus Christ." ^' Faithful is He 
that calleth you, who also will do it " So that 
we have the faithfulness of God vouched for 
our sanctification, for our preservation, for 
our deliverance, for our temptation, for our 
comfort and support in trial and suffering, 
for all we can trust Him up to the coming 
of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and we can trust 
Him with all our heart, with all our weight, 
casting all our care upon Him, for He careth 
for us, trusting in the Lord Jehovah for- 
ever, for He is the Eock of Ages. 

But still further, '^ He that is true " is the 
Guarantee of our true-heartedness and stabil- 
ity. He will keep us true. We can take 
Him for our steadfastness. Not only is God 
at the heaven-side to anchor the cable yon- 
der; but He is also at the heart-side, through 
the Holy Ghost, to fasten it here, so that it 
will not slip as it holds us. And so this 
precious epistle is full of promises of keep- 
ing. While on the one side it bids us hold 



198 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

fast that which we have^ that no man take 
our crown, on the other it promises, ^'I 
will keep you from the hour of temptation 
which Cometh upon aU the world to try all 
that they dwell upon the whole earth," and 
still more strongly, "I will make you a 
pillar in the temple of my God, and ye shall 
go no more out." Thank God we can take 
Him for our courage, for our steadfastness, 
for ''He is able to keep us from falling, 
and to present us faultless before the pres- 
ence of His glory with exceeding joy." 
Blessed is He that is holy, He that is true. 

III. HE THAT HATH THE KEY OF DAVID. 

This, of course, is a description of Christ 
as a King, as the real successor to David, 
King of Israel, the Sovereign, Lord of Na- 
ture, Providence, the Church, and the Mil- 
lennial world, the One that controls all desti- 
nies, and possesses all power and dominion 
in heaven and in earth. But more particu- 
larly, as the holder of the Key of David, 
" He openeth, and no man shutteth; and He 
shutteth, and no man openeth." 



THE KEY OF DAVID. 199 

1. How many things He opens, and opens 
for ever to His people ! He opens the gates 
of hfe; for ''I am the door, by me if any 
man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go 
in and out, and find pastures." He opens 
the gate of heaven; for into that city shall 
enter they only that are written in the 
Lamb's book of life, and over the gate are 
written the words, ^'Blessed are they that 
wash their robes, that they may have right 
to the tree of life, and may enter through 
the gates into the city." He opens our heart 
for His incoming. He opened Lydia's heart. 
He won our stubborn will, and taught us to 
trust and love Him, and yield ourselves to 
Him, and He alone can rule us and subdue us 
with His sceptre of perfect love. 

He opens our eyes to understand His will, 
and He opens His word to our understand- 
ing, so that we may behold wondrous things 
out of His law, and possess all the treasures 
of His glorious truth. He opens for us the 
gates of difficulty, and breaks in pieces the 
gates of brass, and cuts in sunder the bars 



200 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

of iron, and enables us to go forward 
through what seem impassible barriers in 
His work and will. He holds the key of 
knowledge, and opens to ub every problem 
that perplexes, and every question that* 
baffles, and will be our wisdom and guide in 
every trying hour. 

He opens our way of service, our doors of 
usefulness, and prepares us for them, for our 
work, and our field, and He says to us, '^Be- 
hold, I have set before thee an open door, 
and no man can shut it. ' ' He prepared Paul's 
work and gave it to him, and He will give 
you yours if you are ready to do it, and none 
can hinder, for when He gives it, everything 
must go away. He holds the key of human 
hearts, and can open them to your message. 
He can convict the conscience, influence the 
will, persuade the heart, draw the sinner to 
His feet, and constrain the reluctant to be 
willing in the day of His power. He holds 
the key to every safe and pocket-book, and 
He can say to you, '^I will give thee the 
treasures of darkness, and the hidden riches 



THE KEY OF DAVID. 201 

of secret places," and He will provide the 
means that you need for every undertak- 
ing on which He sends you. 

He holds the key of providence, and can 
control all events and circumstances in your 
external life, to co-operate with you, or be- 
come tributary to you in your service for 
Him. He that opened the prison gates for 
Peter, and rent the bars of the Philippian 
jail is still the same. He who gave Esther 
and Daniel favor in the courts of Persia and 
Babylon, and made Joseph to be beloved of 
all he met in the land of Egypt, and gave 
Paul the friendship of the captain of the 
guard and made Cyrus in the flush of his 
pride send forth the captives of Israel to their 
land, He can still open every door and con- 
trol every heart. '^ The king's heart is in the 
hand of the Lord, and He turneth it whith- 
ersoever He will, as the rivers of waters," 
and He will open for you the pathway of His 
will, the way in which He would have you 
go. ^^ I will lead the blind," He says, '^ by a 
way that they know not. I will lead them 



202 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

in paths that they have not known. I will 
make the darkness light before them, and 
the crooked things straight. These things 
will I do unto you and not forsake them. 
I have raised them up in righteousness, and 
I will direct all His ways, I will work, and 
who will let it." His people's path may 
lead through Eed Seas, and Jordans of 
swollen tides, and Jerichos of formidable 
and definite power, and Euroclydian's wild 
tempestuous fire; but He who has already 
burst through the gates of death and hell 
will fulfill all His counsel, and accomplish 
all His perfect will. 

"When He makes bare His arm, 
Who shall His power withstand, 

When He His people's cause maintains, 
Who, who shall stay His hand." 

Beloved, will you use your key more faith- 
fully, more trustfully, more constantly? 
Will you prove more fully than ever that 
you have One with you ^'who openeth and 
no man shutteth?" 

2. How many things He shuts! He has 



THE KEY OF DAVID. 203 

shut for us the gates of hell, blessed be His 
name forever. "And there is no condemna- 
tion now to them that are in Christ Jesus; 
and they shall not come into judgment, but 
have passed out of death into life." He holds 
the keys of death, and its darts cannot touch 
His children until He permits them. He 
holds back the gates of temptation. Satan 
cannot touch one of His children even with 
a tormenting thought till the Master per- 
mits. There is an "if need be" in our man- 
ifold temptations. We are led out of the 
Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of 
the devil. Between every dragon wing, and 
every hellish dart and us is the presence of 
the Holy Ghost, and the bosom of Jesus, and 
the shield of faith, and '^He that was begot- 
ten of God keepeth us and that wicked one 
touch us not. " And therefore He says in this 
verse, "Because thou hast kept the word 
of my patience, I will keep thee from the 
hour of temptation that cometh upon all the 
world." This probably means the last and 
terrible tribulation from which the saints of 



204 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

God shall be taken out and preserved; but it 
also means many another hour of tempta- 
tion from which His people are free. One 
of the terrible calamities of the wicked is 
that they are tempted above that which 
they are able to bear; but one of the most 
blessed promises to the saints is that he 
shall not be so tempted, but that he shall be 
guarded, and when the pressure would be 
too strong it shall be held back. 

He also keeps back the floods of sorrow 
and calamity. In the seventh chapter of 
Eevelation we behold an angel standing in 
the sky and holding back the winds, lest 
they should blow upon the earth before the 
saints of God were sealed. And so God 
shuts the doors of the natural world, the 
flood-gates of the tides of aU evil, and says, 
^* Thus far shalt thou come and no further," 
and here shaU the waves be stopped. Fear 
not. He will dehver you in trial. The floods 
may have lifted up their voice and made a 
mighty noise. But the Lord that is on high 
is mightier than the noise of many waters. 



THE KEY OF DAVID. 205 

and the great sea billows. The Lord sitteth 
King above the floods; yea, the Lord sitteth 
King forever. There is another door that 
He shuts, and that is the door of the inner 
chamber, where He hides us with Himself, 
where He takes us into His fellowship, where 
He gives us His eternal covenant, and seals 
and secures to us that '^ which we have 
committed unto Him against that day." 

In this closing verse He says, ^^I will 
make Him a pillar in the temple of my God, 
and the name of the city of my God, which 
is New Jerusalem, which cometh down from 
heaven out of God, and I will write upon 
Him my new name." When God put Noah 
in the ark He shut him in. When He takes 
us into His bosom He shuts us in. When 
He gives us His promises He guarantees 
them, and seals them, and keeps them for 
us. 

The ideas underlying these beautiful fig- 
ures are stability, security and intimacy. 
He will keep us. He will make us a part 
of Himself, which is the meaning of the 



206 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

name of God. He will make us a part and 
parcel of the New Jerusalem, giving us a 
place in His millennial glory, and writing 
the very name of that city upon us as if we 
inseparably belonged to it. And He will 
give us the pledge of His own personal and 
pure intimacy, writing upon us His own 
new name. This refers back to the white 
stone and the name written upon it, which 
no man could read except he to whom it 
was given. This is the token of the secret 
love, the special covenant, the confidential 
friendship, the inmost, uttermost love of 
Jesus. 

Now unto Him that is holy, that is true, 
that hath the key of David, ' ' that openeth 
and no man shutteth, that shutteth and no 
man openeth, be glory forever." And He 
answers back to us, ^' Behold, I have set 
before thee an open door, and no man can 
shut it." It opens up to the glory of His 
coming, and with the crown shining in the 
light of vision just before, as He cries, 
^^ Behold, I come quickly; hold fast that 



THE KEY OF DAVID. 



2or 



which thou hast, that no man take thy 
crown." And we take Him to hold us, and 
to hold for us our crown, and then to let us 
lay it at His blessed feet forever and say, 
^^Thou who art holy, thou who art true, 
thou who hast given all and kept all, thou 
shalt have all the glory forever. Amen." 




CHAPTER XIL 



THE CORNER. 



" Out of him shall come forth the corner, out of 
him the nail, out of him the battle-bow." Zecha- 
riah x: 4. 

fHE reference of this verse is to the tribe 
of Judah, out of which was to come the 
corner, the nail and the battle-bow. This 
may have referred, in the first instance, to 
earthly kings and defenders, but undoubt- 
edly their ultimate typical application was 
to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to Him indeed 
the same figures are elsewhere applied so ex- 
plicitly as to leave no doubt as to the 
scripturalness of this interpretation. 

I. THE CORNER. 

This metaphor is directly apphed to the 
Lord Jesus Christ by the apostle Peter in 
the second chapter of his first Epsitle, fourth 
verse, '^ To whom coming, as unto a living 



THE CORNER. 209 

stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen 
of God and precious, ye also as lively stones, 
are built up a spiritual house, an holy priest- 
hood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, accept- 
able to God by Christ Jesus. Wherefore also 
it is contained in the Scripture, ' Behold I lay 
in Zion a chief corner-stone, elect, precious; 
and he that believeth on Him shall not be 
confounded. ' Unto you therefore which be- 
lieve. He is precious; but unto them which 
be disobedient, the stone which the builders 
disallowed, the same is made the head of 
the corner." 

1. The corner-stoiie is the foundation of 
the building. It rests upon it. So Christ is 
our foundation. There we rest our hopes 
for eternity and for everything. "Other 
foundation can no man lay than that which 
is laid, which is Christ Jesus. " 

2. The corner-stone regulates the entire 
building. From the corner-stone all the 
other locations and measurements are taken. 
So Christ gives direction to all our life. 
Everything should be shaped with reference 



210 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

to Him as the centre. We can build no 
broader than the foundation and corner, and 
so our hves can never pass beyond Christ, 
but simply be the filling up of that which 
He has already in Himself. The plumb line 
falls till it reaches the corner-stone, and the 
walls must be ever vertical to it or they will 
fall. Our whole Christian life must be 
under the absolute control of the Lord Jesus, 
and both in its lateral and vertical lines, as it 
reaches toward others and touches heaven, 
it must be according to His mind and will, 
His Spirit and holy example. 

3. The corner-stone 'unites the building. 
Without it there can be only one wall, and 
a wall is not a building. It is in Jesus that 
we touch each other and become united in 
our Christian life and in our inmost Spirit. 
A common creed will never unite us; a com- 
mon work will not permanently unite us; 
only a common life will. The true secret of 
catholicity in the church is to live closer to 
Jesus. A deep spiritual Hfe will always 
sweep away the consciousness, at least, of 



» 



THE CORNER. 211 

sectarian barriers. Would we love each 
other and be closely united, let us be filled 
with His love, and, pressing hard to His 
bosom, we shall touch each other in the 
sweetest fellowship of Christian life. 

4. The corner-stone bears the record of 
the building. The name is upon the stone, 
and so we should bear the name of Jesus, 
and no name be seen but His. The date is 
there, and, although the stone was laid long 
before the finishing of the building, yet the 
edifice always bears the date of the stone. 
So the true date of our salvation is Calvary 
and the resurrection. It was then that we 
died with Him, it was then that we rose 
with Him, it was then that our salvation, 
our healing, our redemption was finished, 
and we simply now receive the completed 
work of Christ. And so the story of the 
building is written upon His hands and His 
feet, and upon His heart, and the eternal 
recompenses will be given according to the 
inscriptions that He holds. 

5. The corner-stone is the ornamental 



212 ' THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

stone of the building. It is often made of 
polished granite or marble, or still more 
precious material, and it is the object of 
observation, and the ornament of the struct- 
ure. So Jesus bears the glory. Unto you, 
therefore, which believe He is precious, or 
hterally, is for an ornament. We are not to 
bear the praise or the glory, or to decorate' 
ourselves with the insignia of human grand- 
eur, but to be hidden upon His bosom, and 
to hold Him up before the world as our 
honor and our praise, ever crying, ^'Bless- 
ing, and glory, and riches, and honor, and 
thanksgiving, and power, and might, be 
unto the Lamb forever and forever. 

''Not I, but Christ, be honored, praised, exalted; 

Not I, but Christ, be seen, be known, be heard. 
Not I, but Christ, in every look and motion; 

Not I, but Christ, in every thought and word. 
Oh, to be saved from myself, dear Lord, 

Oh, to be lost in thee; 
Oh, that it might be no more I, 

But Christ that lives in me." 

II. THE NAIL. 

In the twenty-second chapter of Isaiah 
this figure is more fully referred to: 



THE CORNER. 213 

^'And the key of the house of David will 
I lay upon His shoulder; so He shall open 
and none shall shut, and he shall shut and 
none shall open. And I will fasten him as 
a nail in a sure place, and he shall be for a 
glorious throne for his father's house. And 
they shall hang upon Him all the glory of 
his father's house, the offspring and the 
issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the 
vessels of cups even to all the vessels of 
flagons." 

In the third chapter, of Eevelation this 
passage is quoted hy the Lord Jesus Himself 
with respect to Himself: 

''These things saith He that is holy, He 
that hath the key of David, He that openeth 
and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no 
man openeth." 

The passage here refers directly to Christ, 
and it is in this passage that He is called the 
"Nail fastened in the sure place," on which is 
to be hung all the glory of the Father's 
house. There are two special uses of a nail. 
The first is to secure and fasten, and so 



214 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

Christ is the security of our hopes and hves. 
He keeps us by His intercession, by His hfe, 
by our union with Himself. Secondly, a 
nail is to hang things upon, and this is the 
special sense in which it is here used. The 
Father has hung everything upon Jesus. 
All the glory of the Father's house is upon 
Him. '^AU things are delivered unto me of 
my Father," He says. ^'The Father loveth 
the Son, and hath given all things into His 
hands." There is no attribute of power, 
wisdom or love in God which Jesus does 
not fully possess, and has not the right to 
communicate to us or use for our well-being. 
But not only has the Father hung every- 
thing upon Him, but He can hang all our 
graces upon Him. We are not to hang them 
upon ourselves. We do not and never shall 
possess anything of ourselves. It is not 
that we are to add our virtues to our own 
person, but we are to take Christ to be 
in our hearts ''as a nail fastened in a sure 
place," and then upon Him we may hang 
the faith, the love, the peace, the gentleness, 



THE CORNER. 215 

the patience, and all the graces of spirit, 
until our heart becomes a wardrobe with a 
thousand dresses ready for use as we need 
them in each new situation and act of life. 

The figure represents the nail as bearing 
upon it, not only all the glory of the Father's 
house, but the offspring and the issue, and 
all vessels, both the small vessels and vessels 
of flagons. The offspring and issue have 
reference, perhaps, to our being born our- 
selves of Him as His very offspring and 
issue, and fastened to Him by ties of blood 
and life; or it may refer to our offspring 
and issue, our spiritual fruit, all of which 
we must receive through Him, for our power 
is not our own, but is hung upon Christ, and 
all our work must be handed over to Him 
and kept by Him as the nail on which we 
leave every precious thing. The vessels and 
flagons hung upon this nail have reference 
to the various needs of life, all of which are 
supplied from Him. On this blessed nail 
are hanging cups of every size, which we 
can fill, and from which we can drink when- 



216 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

ever we are thirsty, and there is no want so 
small but we can find it met in His name, 
and life, and love. The flagons, or vessels 
of wine, refer to the deeper joys, blessings 
of our communion with Him. As there is 
no cup too small for Him to fill, so there is 
no need too deep, no joy too divine, for Him 
to satisfy. 

The sure place in which this nail is fast- 
ened has reference to the certainty and se- 
curity of the blessing which we have in 
Christ. All else is liable to fail, but that 
which we hang upon Him will stand for- 
ever. The confidences we repose in others 
and ourselves are fragile; but this only can 
never be removed. This hope is an anchor 
of the soul, both sure and steadfast. 

First, this nail has been fastened into the 
cross of Calvary, where our salvation was 
completed. 

Secondly, this nail has been fastened into 
the throne in the ascension and resurrection 
of Christ, guaranteeing our complete salva- 
tion, and 



THE CORNER. 217 

Thirdly, it may be fastened in our hearts 
as the very essence and substance of our 
inmost Hfe, a hfe so certain, a keeping so 
infinite and divine, that we can say, ^^ I know 
whom I have behoved, and am persuaded 
that He is able to keep that which I have 
committed unto Him against that day." 

There are two ways of fastening a nail. 
One is to drive a cut nail into the wood, and 
just leave it. The other is to take a wrought 
nail, made of malleable iron, and drive it 
through and a little beyond, and then clinch 
it. This kind of work never draws, and 
this is the sort of nail that Christ is, when 
truly taken in the committal of faith. 

Christ has clinched the nail on His side. 
' ^ I give unto them eternal life, and they 
shall never perish, neither shall any pluck 
them out of my hand." This is the nail 
driven; but listen, ''My Father which gave 
them to me is greater than all; and none is 
able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." 
That is the nail clinched. 



218 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

III. THE BATTLE-BOW. 

The first thing suggested by the bow is 
that Christ is the spring of our hves. If 
you want a spirit that sweeps the heavens, 
and reaches out into the infinite possibilities 
of God's boundlessness, take Christ to dwell 
in your heart. 

Next, the figure suggests defence. Christ 
is our defence against the enemy; but we 
have to use Him as you would use a bow. 
A bow lying on the ground is of no use. A 
bow unstrung is of no use; but you must 
take it and draw the string, and pull the 
bow, and shoot the arrow, and your enemies 
shall fall with every shaft. 

Again, the bow suggests an arrow. The 
bow is useless without an arrow. The 
arrows are God's promises and our prayers, 
pointed by definite desires, directed by the 
will of God, winged by faith and holy ex- 
pectation, and then sent forth with the 
strong hand and the full momentum of the 
faith of God to reach the heavens and the 



THE CORNER. 219 

uttermost parts of our needs and our diffi- 
culties. 

We have a beautiful example of these 
arrows in the thirteenth chapter of second 
Kings. The great prophet of Israel was 
dying, and Jehoash, his grateful king, came 
to visit him, and cried, as he knelt beside 
him, my father, my father, the chariot of 
Israel and the horsemen thereof. Then 
Elisha proceeded to give the king some 
expression and evidence of his real help, 
stronger than mere words. He bade Him 
take a bow and arrows that were lying by 
his side, and, putting his hands alongside 
the king's, he commanded him to pull the 
string to its utmost tension, and shoot an 
arrow; and as it sped away into the fields 
beyond, he cried, ' ' The arrow of the Lord's 
deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance 
from Syria, for thou shalt smite the Syrians 
in Aphek, till thou have consumed them." 
But this was not enough. He must now 
take up the arrows and prove for himself 
the strength and completeness of His faith. 



220 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

and so the proi3het bids him smite upon the 
ground. He does it thrice, and then stops. 
The old prophet looks grave and angry. 
'^Thou shouldst have smitten five or six 
times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till 
thou hadst consumed it; whereas thou shalt 
smite Syria but thrice." He had only 
taken half a blessing, and that was all that 
he should have. What a beautiful type of 
faith which our text expresses! 

As we take the bow of faith, there is 
another hand that holds and guides it. Let 
us not fear to pull the string to its utmost 
tension, for this bow will never break. 
Christ is the battle-bow, and His hand is 
pulling the string with ours, and we can 
have all we dare to claim. Let the arrow be 
very definite, and then let us not stay until 
we have covered the whole circle of possible 
need and blessing, and He will be only too 
glad to give us all we dare to claim, and 
grieved only because we take so little. May 
the Lord help us to know ^'the exceeding 
greatness of His power to usward who 



t 



THE CORNER. 221 

believe, according to the working of His 
mighty power which He wrought in Christ, 
when He raised Him from the dead and set 
Him at His own right hand in the heavenly 
places, far above all might, and principality, 
and power, and dominion, and every name 
that is named, not only in this world, but in 
that which is to come!" 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE REFINER. 



"But who may abide the day of His coining, and 
who shall stand when He appeareth, for He is like a 
refiner's fire, and like fuller's sope ? And He shall 
sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and He shall 
purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and 
silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering 
in righteousness." Malachi iii: 2, 3. 

fHIS is the last Old Testament prophetic 
message respecting the coming Messiah. 
The first verse tells of two messengers who 
are soon to appear: one is the forerunner, 
the other the Saviour, the great angel of 
the covenant who appeared to Abraham and 
Moses, and who in the Old Testament ages 
was the manifestation of Jehovah to His 
people. The special reference is to His 
purifying work. He is to be distinguished 
from all former teachers and messengers by 
His sin-cleansing power. He is to '' sit as a 
refiner and purifier of silver, and to purify 



THE REFINER. 223 

the sons of Levi that they may offer an 
offering in righteousness. " Other messengers 
could bring reformation; but He is to bring 
regeneration. Others were reprovers of sin; 
but He brings the power that takes the sin 
away. 

Malachi's message was echoed four cen- 
turies later by John the Baptist as he stood 
among the thousands who came to Him for 
deliverance from their sins, and he felt his 
helplessness to grant them what they 
needed, and longed for a stronger and 
diviner hand to cleanse and keep. '^I in- 
deed baptize you with water unto repent- 
ance," but while he said it he knew that the 
men who came to him to confess their sins 
would ere long be again immersed in sin and 
powerless to overcome it, and he longed 
intensely for one who could not only reprove 
and forgive, but who could renew and 
radically cleanse the heart from intrinsic 
evil. And so he added: ^ 'There cometh one 
after me whose shoe latchet I am not 
worthy to stoop down and unloose : He shall 



224 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire." 
This was indeed the meaning of the glorious 
name given to the Saviour before He came, 
'^ Jesus, for He shall save His people from 
their sins,'" and this is one of the radical 
distinctions between the Old Testament and 
the New. The latter provides for a com- 
plete and perfect cleansing and purification 
of our entire being from the power of evil, 
such as the law could never bring. 

Let us inquire for a httle what are the 
essential differences between the Old and 
the New Testaments, the Law and |;he 
Gospel in the provision they make for our 
spiritual cleansing. 



First, Christ brings us a far higher stand- 
ard, no less, indeed, than a divine example. 
His command to us is, ^^ Be ye holy as I am 
holy." '^Be ye therefore perfect even as 
your Father which is in heaven is perfect." 
He requires of us not only a lofty human 
character, but complete resemblance to the 



THE REFINER. 225 

divine image. " Love one another as I have 
loved you." ^' He has chosen us that we 
should be conformed to the image of His 
Son. " ' Tut on the new man v^hich is renewed 
in holiness after the image of Him that cre- 
ated him." He that abideth in Him ought 
to walk even as He walked. 

But not only does it unfold a higher stand- 
ard, but it reveals a deeper, more interior 
life, a life that reaches even to the heart, the 
thoughts, the motives, the desires; which 
requires us to love the Lord with all our 
heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, to 
not only abstain from impurity, but from 
unholy thought and feeling, not only to do 
right, but to do right from a right motive. 
The word for purity in the New Testament 
is singleness of heart, murder is hatred, 
adultery is evil desire, and the righteousness 
of the kingdom a radical and divine renew- 
ing of the inmost being and all the princi- 
ples, motives, and aims of life. 

Not only so, but the righteousness of the 
New Testament reaches to all sides of our 



226 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

being and relationships^ internal as well as 
external. The Old Testament had sacred 
persons, times, and things; but under the 
New Testament everything is sacred. One 
day in seven was holy to the Lord; but now 
every day should be a Sabbath in its true 
spirit. One place was His sanctuary; but 
now every place should be dedicated to His 
glory. One class of men were separated to 
sacred priestly functions; but now we are 
^'all kings and priests unto God," and ex- 
pected to be equally holy and near to Him. 
One class of duties was holier than another; 
but now everything we do may be done 
unto His glory, and pleasing in His sight. 
And so the standard of New Testament 
holiness is higher, deeper, and broader than 
the Old. Therefore, we find some things 
even in the morahty of the former which 
would not be accepted under the New. 
Zechariah, the prophet, dying under the 
hand of Joash, prays, "Lord, look upon it 
and require it. " Stephen looks up from the 
blows of his murderers and cries, "Lord, lay 
not this sin to their charge." 



THE REFINER. 227 

II. 

But secondly, Christ makes complete pro- 
vision in His atonement for our cleansing. 
The offerings of the Old Testament were 
types of this future provision for the cleans- 
ing of the offerer; but the apostle well says 
in Hebrews, ^Hhey never could make the 
comers thereunto perfect,'' but Christ has 
come with His own blood to make full 
and final provision for our entire cleansing. 
^'Itis not possible that the blood of bulls 
and goats should take away our sins." 
^^Then said He, Lo, I come to do thy will, 
God; by the which will we are sanctified 
through the offering of the body of Jesus 
Christ once for all." '' For by one offering 
He hath perfected forever them that are 
sanctified." It is therefore true that the 
atonement of Jesus Christ has provided for 
our entire cleansing from evil, and the sanc- 
tification of our entire being to God. If this 
be so, whatever the difficulties may be, it is 
our redemption right, and if it be so, it is 
the redemption right of all believers. It is 



228 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

not an exclusive or exceptional distinction 
which a few saintly ones may claim, but it 
is covered by the blood of the cross and the 
whosoever of the gospel, and if we are not 
entering into it as a personal experience, we 
are to that extent allowing Christ to have 
died for us in vain and coming short of the 
full inheritance. Beloved, do you realize 
that it is your privilege, your purchased 
right, to be holy, and that for this purpose 
your Saviour shed His precious blood, and 
you are stabbing Him with a new wound if 
you let Him die in vain. 

III. 

Thirdly, Christ has not only revealed a 
higher holiness and purchased for us the 
right to it; but He has risen again to become 
for us the living source of that holiness 
through union with His own person; and 
He has offered to come to us in His person, 
and to become to each of us an indwelling life 
which will literally reproduce in us His own 
purity and enable us to live among men 



THE REFINER. 229 

even as He lived. This is something which 
the Old Testament saints never knew. God 
was with Moses and Elijah, and the men at 
Babylon; but God is in the humblest of His 
saints who sincerely receive Him. This is 
the mystery hid from ages and generations, 
"" Christ in you, the hope of glory." This is 
'^the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the 
wisdom which none of the princes of this 
world knew," Christ ''made unto us of God 
wisdom, even righteousness, sanctification 
and redemption." This is the great provi- 
sion of the gospel, a living personal Saviour, 
Christ our life. This is our all sufficiency 
for every situation and trial, and difficulty, 
'' I can do all things through Christ, who is 
my strength." This is the source of holy 
living, and holy usefulness, ^'He that abid- 
eth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth 
forth much fruit, for apart from me ye can 
do nothing." This renders our failures 
inexcusable. This makes our responsibility 
for a holy life ten-fold greater. Beloved, 
have we recognized that God is meeting 



230 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

each of us with a full divine provision for a 
hfe of holiness and victory, and that He 
holds us responsible, not so much to do it 
ourselves, as to receive from Him the grace 
and power that will enable us to do it. 

IV. 

Fourth. The pre-eminent provision Jesus 
Christ has made in the gospel for our cleans- 
ing is the gift of the Holy Ghost. He sent 
to us from heaven the third person of the 
Divine Trinity to take up His abode in our 
heart, to impart to us the very life of Christ, 
to teach us, to lead us, train us in our 
Christian life, and to carry on the whole 
work of our cleansing and spiritual perfect- 
ing, until the Kefiner can see His image 
mirrored in the silver, and we are prepared 
to be jewels in the day of His coming. It is 
to this deeper, quieter, more patient working 
of the Holy Ghost that the text specially re- 
fers. It is one thing to be cleansed from sin, 
and surely that ought to be true of every 
Christian, but it is a differnt thing to be 



1 



THE REFINER. 231 

refined by God's holy fire antirwe have been 
brought into all the fullness of His will, and 
reflect in all things His holy image. It is 
this thorough work of the Holy Ghost to 
which God is calling us in these words, 
where He sits as ^ ' a refiner and purifier of 
silver," calming, working and waiting until 
His purpose is fulfilled. 

In the picture 'given of the Holy Bride as 
she sits waiting for the coming Lord, it is 
said in the book of Revelation that it was 
granted to her to be arrayed in fine linen, 
clean and bright, or lustrous. It is one 
thing to have the linen clean : it is another 
to have it bright and lustrous. You may 
take your linen from the clothes line, and 
there is no spot on it; but when you take it 
from the laundry, it is not only spotless, but 
lustrous, polished, shining with the gloss of 
skillful hands; and if it be costly embroid- 
ery, or lace adorned with all the delicate 
touches of the needle and the loom, arranged 
in beautiful order and taste. It is one thing 
for the gold to be cleansed from the dross: 



k 



232 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

it is another for it to be shaped in all the 
skill of the silversmith's art. It is one thing 
to have sin bnrned out: it is quite another 
to have the glory burned in. 

And So we read again in Daniel, ^^many 
shall be purified, and made white and tried." 
The purification is the primary work of sanc- 
tification; but the making white is that 
which John expresses by the word lustrous, 
it is the refining, the adorning, the complet- 
ing of the work in the minutiae of detail. 
This is the work which the Holy Ghost is 
carrying on in all our hearts as fully as we 
will let Him. Perhaps He has dehvered you 
from sin; but now He is endeavoring to de- 
liver you from self. There is nothing more 
truly productive of miseries and failures in 
Christian life than the spirit of self, even in 
good persons. 

Ask yourself this morning whence all 
your cares and worries come, and you will 
find from some thought of self, from some 
fear about yourself, from some consideration 
of your interests, rights, wrongs, grievances, 



THE REFINER. 233 

or troubles. It will be a heaven of rest to 
you, and a source of great blessing to 
others, if you will wholly cancel all thoughts 
of yourself, and will truly^say that all your 
acts and prayers are for others, and for your 
Master's cause; and the moment you begin 
to live this life you will enter into perfect 
peace, and you will find that God has taken 
up your cause. 

Or, again. He is, perhaps, refining you 
from your natural life and lifting you into 
a spiritual life and love. Your affections 
are, perhaps, merely human, and they are 
absorbing others for your own gratification 
rather than for God's will and glory, and 
are keeping you on a lower plane. God 
wants them fcransformed and transfigured 
into the heavenly love that will be abiding 
and eternal, the millennial life into which 
He is leading you already, even before the 
coming of your Lord. He is crucifying you 
to your loves and links, that they may be 
reformed in God, and so formed that they 
may be forever. 



234 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

Have you ever seen a skeletonized bouquet ? 
Look at those leaves as they are in their 
natural beauty; they are soft and green, but 
fading; in a few hours they will wither 
away, and their beauty will be dead. But 
look at them after some skillful woman's 
hands have touched them and they have 
come forth from the bleaching whiter than 
the driven snow, dehcate, ethereal, as 
flowers of paradise, every fibre of the 
skeleton standing out in fine and clear re- 
lief, and yet so purified from the earthly 
and fieshly covering that they are more 
beautiful than before, and withall you know 
are now abiding. Their beauty will never 
wither. They stand in your vase or cabinet 
the same through the passing years, the 
substance of that which you once possessed 
in a lower form. It is a cold and imperfect 
figure, yet it expresses something of the 
refining process through which God is put- 
ting our hearts and transforming our earth- 
ly loves into heavenly ties that will last 
forever, not like those dry, skeletonized 



THE REFINER. 235 

leaves, but with a deeper love than they 
had before, a love more calm, more pure, 
more peaceful, more unselfish, more divine. 
Beloved, are you letting Him so refine 
you, so transform you, so anticipate in you 
His own coming and millennial life and 
glory? 

Or again, perhaps He is teaching you the 
higher grace of love, and leading you through 
the thirteenth chapter of first Corinthians. 
Some of you know how slowly you get 
through it. Perhaps you have got the long- 
suffering and kindness, the humility and 
modesty of the fourth verse. Perhaps you 
have got through the unselfishness of the 
fifth verse, but have you got to the ^^not 
provoked,'' to the "thinketh no evil?" 
Perhaps you can bear all things in the 
seventh verse with a ''grin-and-bear-it " 
stoicism, but have you got into the next 
clause, ^^believeth all things, ^hopeth all 
things?" Have you got into the spirit 
that so refuses to believe evil that there is 
really nothing to bear, that cuts the sinews 



236 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

of your troubles by ignoring them and re- 
fusing to believe them really, and by look- 
ing at the people that have wronged you 
with such a loving trustfulness that you 
will not believe evil of them if it seem to 
be true, and if you cannot quite believe that 
it is not so, you will, like your heavenly 
Father, say, ^' It should not be, and I will 
think of them as if it were not true ? " 

For my own sake I always try to refuse 
to beheve it if I can, and if I cannot believe 
good of people at the present, it is an in- 
finite comfort to me to ask the Lord to make 
it true, and then believe that He will make 
it true, and then to hope for them with that 
confidence which enables me to count the 
thmgs which are not as if they were, and 
henceforth think of the erring one in the light 
of my hope, in the light of their own future, 
as though akeady in heaven and the per- 
fection and glory of the Father's life. 

Beloved, that erring brother some day 
will be brighter than the sun, and you will 
love him without a recollection of your 



THE REFINER. 237 

present grievances against him. Think of 
this now as if it were so, and so anticipate 
the future, and so rise out of the present 
that you shall act under the influence of 
that which shall he, and you can so labor 
and pray to make it real. 

And so about the eight verse, '^charity 
never faileth." You have a great deal of 
love, and you uniformly triumph, but once 
in a while you sort of claim the privilege of 
a temporary failure. You do not think it 
very wrong if you occasionally break down, 
and so your weak hnk destroys the entire 
chain. God is leading you through this to 
that victory which never fails, so that love 
which goes forth exclaiming, ^^ Thanks be 
unto God which always causeth us to 
triumph through Christ Jesus," and making 
manifest the Saviour of His knowledge by 
us in every place. 

Or again, the Refiner may be taking you 
through the experience of patience, and 
strengthening you with all might according 
to His glorious power unto all patience and 



238 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

long-suffering with joyfulness. Perhaps you 
have got the patience and the long-suffering, 
but have you got the joyfulness? And so we 
might take all the lessons, and trace His 
gentle leading and teaching through the dis- 
cipline of our spiritual life as He is bringing 
us closer and closer to His own glorious 
hkeness. 

Beloved, are we letting Him? A jeweler 
once told a lady that he kept the silver in 
the fire until he could see his face in it; and 
so the great Kefiner sits down quietly, 
slowly; at the crucible where our hearts are 
consuming, and waits till He can see His 
image in our hearts, in our souls, and then 
He dismisses the firemen, carries away the 
ashes, stops the flame, and takes the silver 
and pours it into the mould of something 
lovely and heavenly, where it becomes a 
vessel for His grace and love, or perhaps as 
flagons to carry His wine and water to His 
perishing, suffering children, for ^'He is re- 
fining and purifying us as silver is tried, 
that the sons of Levi may offer unto Him 



THE REFINER. 239 

an offering in righteousness;" and the serv- 
ice of sanctified men and women is immeas- 
urably more precious to God in its most 
trivial forms than all we can do or give 
when our hearts are swept by earthly pas- 
sion, or influenced by selfish or unholy 
motives. 




CHAPTER XIV. 



THE BAPTIZER. 



"Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, 
and remaining upon Him, the same is He which 
baptizeth with the Holy Grhost." John i: 33. 

fHIS is one of the names given to our 
dear Lord, and it is especially appropri- 
ate for this sacred day, which, in the calender 
of a portion of the church of Christ, is de- 
voted to the special recognition of the third 
person of the Godhead, the blessed Holy 
Spirit. It is becoming that we should greatly 
honor the Holy Ghost; for He never honors 
Himself, but ever holds up the person of 
Jesus Christ, and hides behind the glory of 
Him whom He loves to reveal. It is not, 
however, of the Holy Ghost directly that 
this passage speaks, but of Him who sends 
the Holy Ghost, ^'He that baptizeth with 
the Holy Ghost," our blessed Lord, to whom 



THE BAPTIZER. 241 

we owe this most precious gift of the New 
Testament dispensation. 

I. IN WHAT SENSE CHRIST BABTIZETH WITH 
THE HOLY GHOST. 

The Spirit is His gift as He is the Father's 
gift. The greatest gift of the Old Testament 
was Jesus; the greatest gift of Jesus was 
the Spirit. The Father sends the Son; the 
Son baptizeth with the Spirit; and the Spirit 
brings both the Father and the Son into our 
heart and Hfe. 

1. Jesus is the giver of the Holy Ghost 
inasmuch as He has removed the hindrances 
to the coming of the Spirit into our hearts. 
The great hindrance was sin. The Holy 
Ghost is just the presence of God^ and God 
cannot dwell in an unholy temple any more 
than Noah's dove could rest upon the earth 
while the floods of judgment and the car- 
casses of corrupt flesh covered the earth. 
Not until the flood was passed and all flesh 
had died, and the earth was cleansed by its 
great baptism of judgment, could the dove 



242 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

rest, not merely for a moment upon the 
bows of the olive trees, but all over the 
land, to fly abroad, and build its nest, and 
rear its broods wherever it could find a 
sheltering branch. So the Holy Ghost, 
under the Old Testament, could not rest in 
the heart of men. Often He visited them, 
even as the dove went forth from the ark; 
often He revealed the olive branch of peace 
and covenant; often He came to the hearts 
of men with divine light, and life, and help; 
but the human breast was not His home 
until after Jesus had finished His work of 
atonement. But when, through the cross 
of Calvary, the judgment of sin was 
accomplished, and, in the death of the sub- 
stitute, sinful man was recognized as dead 
to the fiesh, as judged, crucified; then He 
went forth to rest and reside on earth, and 
to make the hearts of men His home. 

Just as soon as through the ascension of 
Jesus it was demonstrated that sin was 
judged and God was satisfied for guilty man, 
immediately the Holy Ghost came down 



THE BAPTIZER. 243 

from heaven. And so in the individual hfe, 
just as soon as sin is confessed and judged, 
and the blood of the great sacrifice is appro- 
priated, and Jesus Christ accepted as the 
propitiation and the cleansing of the heart, 
into the holy temple of our inmost being 
the blessed Comforter loves to come, and to 
dwell as our guest, oui' friend, our guide, 
our Master, the representative to us of God, 
and the executive in us and for us, of His 
holy will. To Jesus we owe all this. But 
for His redeeming work, the blessed presence 
of God could never come to dwell within us; 
but now the message has gone forth to 
every sinful soul, ^'Repent and be bai^tized 
in the name of the Lord Jesus, for the 
remission of sins, and ye shall receive the 
gift of the Holy Ghost." 

Beloved, have you accepted the great 
atonement, have you received the cleansing 
blood, have you been reconciled and sancti- 
fied, and has the way been opened by the 
precious blood of the great High Priest into 
the Holy of Holies of your inmost being, for 



2M THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

the Shekinah of His glory to shine within, 
and reveal the light of the knowledge of the 
glory of God in the face of Jesus ? Is there 
any cloud of sin hiding and hindering that 
divine indwelling ? Oh, He is able to clear 
it all away. Come to His blessed feet, come 
to His sprinkled blood, come to His throne 
of grace, come to the great sacrifice, come 
to the cross of Calvary, come to the great 
High Priest, come to Jesus, and He will 
cleanse you by His blood, and baptize you 
with His Holy Spirit. 

2. Jesus baptizeth with the Holy Ghost 
inasmuch as He received the Holy Ghost 
into His own person, and for three years 
and a half walked through Galilean Judea 
^'in the Spirit, ^^ which He now gives to us; 
receiving the third person of the Godhead 
into personal union with Himself, so that 
He could send Him forth, not as another 
Spirit, but as His own Spirit. This is very 
precious and truly wonderful. The Holy 
Ghost is not to us now what He would have 
been before Jesus came, and what He was 



THE BAPTIZER. 245 

under the Old Testament, purely the 
Spirit of Deity; but He is, if we can under- 
stand what it means, the Spirit that dwelt 
in the human and divine Christ; the Spirit 
that (if we may say it with reverence) was 
softened and in some sense humanized by 
union with Jesus; the Spirit that loved John 
and Mary, that took the little children to 
His bosom, that compassionated the multi- 
tude, that wept for Jerusalem, that said to 
the poor woman, '^Go and sin no moie;" 
that whispered, '^Let not your heart be 
troubled;" that talked with the woman of 
Samaria, that forgave and restored Peter, 
that overlooked all Thomas' unbelief, that 
bore so patiently the shame of the judgment 
hall, and endured the agony of the cross, 
that walked and talked on the way to 
Emmaus, so simply, and yet with such 
human tenderness and nearness. Oh, how 
near it brings Him to receive Him as the 
Spirit of our precious Christ! And so Jesus 
received Him and spake all His words, and 
did all His works through the Spirit; and 



246 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

now He gives to us the very same Spirit 
that dwelt in Him. And so in Eomans the 
apostle speaks of the Spirit of Christ, and 
says, ^'If Christ be in you the body is dead 
because of sin, but the Spirit is life because 
of righteousness," and ''If any man have 
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.'' 

Beloved, He is waiting to-day to give you 
His own very Spirit, to breathe upon you 
and say, ''Eeceive ye the Holy Ghost." 
And you may take Him warm from the 
bosom of Jesus, sweet as the breath of His 
love, pure as the light of His holiness, mighty 
as the strength of His omnipotenee, and, in 
some sense, colored and softened by the 
very humanity of our incarnate Lord. 

3. Jesus baptizes with the Holy Ghost in 
the sense that He distinctly sent Him on the 
day of Pentecost, from heaven to earth. It 
was His promise that He would do so. ''If 
I go not away the Comforter wiU not come; 
but if I depart, I will send Him unto you." 
And so Peter, speaking of His coming, says, 
"He, having received of the Father the 



THE BAPTIZER. 247 

promise of the Holy Ghost, hath now shed 
forth this, which ye now see and hear." This 
was a distinct and actual transaction which 
involved the most stupendous issues and 
relations. On that day and in that moment 
a real person, a divine person, actually 
changed His residence and removed from 
heaven to earth, and has ever since resided, 
not in heaven, but in this world. With the 
sound of that mighty rushing wind, a pro- 
cession as glorious as the ascension of Jesus 
took place. The Holy Dove, the mighty 
Paraclete, came down from heaven to return 
no more till the dispensation of the gospel 
shall have closed; and from that hour his 
residence has been in this world in the hearts 
of Christ's people, and the sacred sanctuary 
of His body, the church. 

Let us fully realize this. The Spirit is not 
now in heaven, and we need never ask Him 
to come from heaven; but He is present, 
and we have only to receive Him, for He 
has already come. The mighty baptism has 
been commanded and imparted; and, just as 



248 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

the air is charged with electricity and you 
have but to absorb it from the atmosphere, 
just as the atmosphere is saturated with 
moisture, and the cool pitcher has only to 
absorb the dew; so the Holy Ghost is all 
around us, the spaces about us are filled with 
His presence. His ear is within whispering 
distance of every heart, and we have but 
to become receiving vessels adjusted to His 
touch, and He flows in to fill every channel 
of our being as naturally as the air enters 
the open lungs, as the light floods the lifted 
window, as the sun shines wherever there is 
any object to receive his radiance. Beloved, 
the Holy Ghost has come, the day of Pente- 
cost is past, the Spirit of God is here, wiU 
you receive Him ? 

4. But there is yet a personal baptism 
with the Holy Ghost which must come to 
each heart for itself. To each of us must 
be applied personally the great atonement, 
to each of us must come the actual presence 
of the comforter, and Jesus is the one that 
will bring this to pass. It is not the Holy 



THE BAPTIZER. 249 

Ghost you are to pray to, but it is the 
Saviour. It is He that baptizeth with the 
Holy Ghost. Go to Jesus for Him, put 
yourself at His dear feet, take Him as your 
Saviour, take Him as your Sauctifier, trust 
Him to give you this most precious gift, 
claim it, and refuse to let Him go without 
its fullness, hold fast to His loving feet, 
claim your birthright, your redemption 
right, what He so longs to give you, obey 
His voice, follow His directions, thank Him 
for the faintest touch that answers your 
prayer, follow on in the light that He gives, 
even in a gleam of radiance, and you shall 
know the Lord in all the fullness of His 
glory and love, and eternally praise Him 
who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. 

II. WHAT IS INVOLVED IN THIS GREAT BAP- 
TISM AND BLESSING. 

1. It is different from the conversion of 
the soul and the work of the Holy Spirit in 
regeneration. That is the birth of the soul, 
this is the baptism. Just as Jesus Himself 



250 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

was born of the Spirit in Mary's bosom, but 
thirty years later was baptized of the Spirit 
on the banks of the Jordan, so each of us is 
born of the Spirit in the moment of our 
conversion, but we are baptized of the Spirit 
when we yield ourselves fully to Christ, and, 
like Him on Jordan's banks, enter upon our 
life-work for God. 

2. It is a direct personal coming of God's 
Spirit into the heart, and a complete possess- 
ing of it by the Spirit for God and His holy 
will and work. The first, the conversion of 
the soul, which He may do at a distance, or 
by a momentary act. The baptism of the 
Spirit is God's residence in the soul, which 
is a closer union, and a more continuous 
communion and working. The one is the 
building of a house, and I may build a hun- 
dred houses, the other is my residence in 
the house, and the making of that house my 
abode. 

3. What are the effects of this divine 
incoming and occupancy ? Let us trace them 
briefly as Christ Himself reveals them in 
His own promise. 



THE BAPTIZER. 251 

(t. ''At that day {i.e., the day when the 
Comforter comes) ye shall know that I am 
in the Father, and ye m me, and I in you." 
That is to say, the coming of the Holy 
Spirit will give reality, vividness and intense 
consciousness to our union with Jesus 
Christ. We will not be so conscious that 
we have received the Spirit as that Jesus is 
dwelling in our hearts and bringing the 
Father with Him. We shall not believe or 
hope, but we shall intensely know by the 
deepest spiritual cognition and consciousness, 
by an intuition deeper than any emotional 
impression or feeling, that ''He is in us, and 
we in Him," and our life is part of His, and 
His life is part of ours forever. 

Do we not long for this ? Does not Jesus 
sometimes seem far away? Is it not difficult 
for you to conceive and grasp His personal 
reality ? Does your heart not hunger for a 
keen, sweet, constant sense of His substan- 
tial reality ? Oh! will you not cry for the 
Holy Ghost to make you know that "He is 
in the Father, and you in Him, and He in 



252 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

you.*' It is His own promise. Hold Him 
to it, and claim it of Him this day in all 
His fullness. This is the deepest need of your 
spiritual life, to know Jesus as abiding in 
you, to understand the secret, which is 
''Christ in you the hope of glory; " to have 
no doubt of it, no vague reaching out for 
it, but a deep abiding rest in His abid- 
ing love. Beloved, claim your privilege. 
Blessed Holy Ghost, make Jesus real to us, 
and let us know that we are in Him, and 
that He is in us, as never before, in the 
deep eternal rest, faith, fellowship and love. 
h. The baptism of the Spirit will bring 
you instruction and light; for ''He shall 
teach you all things. " Our minds need to 
be instructed, as well as our spirits united 
to Christ. Our thought needs to be directed 
in the fullness of divine truth. Our under- 
standing needs to be illuminated in the 
knowledge of God and His Word. Our 
Bible needs to be made plain and living to 
us; and all this the Spirit does. How in a 
moment He lights up a passage with a 



THE BAPTIZER. 253 

strange vividness, which we had often 
read, and which we had intellectually un- 
derstood, but had never felt the power of ! 
How plain He makes the subject of sancti- 
fi cation by a single touch of heavenly hght ! 
How easy it seems to us to claim Him as a 
Healer when the truth is brought home to 
the heart by the Holy Ghost, not as a 
theory, but as a living light from heaven for 
our suffering life ! 

Not only does He teach, but He continues 
to teach; and He repeats His teaching; for 
He will '^ bring all things to your re- 
membrance, whatsoever I have said unto 
you. " In a moment of perplexity He will 
suggest to us with strange appropriateness 
the very thought and word that will bring 
us direction. In the hour of temptation He 
will bring to our remembrance the promise 
that will deliver and overcome the adversary, 
"the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word 
of God.' In the dark night of sorrow He 
will shed the bright light of His comfort, 
and the star of promise will shine with a 



264 THE NAMES OP JESUS. 

brightness we could not see by day. In the 
time of service He will bring to our re- 
membrance the truth that we need to speak. 
^^ He will waken our ear morning by morn- 
ing to hear as the learned, that we may 
know how to speak a word in season to him 
that is weary," and ^'it shall be given you 
in that same hour what ye shall say, and 
what ye shall speak." 

As we kneel by the side of the inquirer 
and the penitent He will give to us the ap- 
propriate message. As we meet the as- 
sults and the keen criticisms of man, He 
will enable us to know what we ought to 
answer every one, and will let our speech 
be always with grace, seasoned with salt. 
And we will often wonder at the strange 
simplicity and sweetness with which in- 
tuitively our thoughts come to us, and 
some one seems to be thinking in us without 
our trying. Oh, the blessed help of the 
Holy Ghost's suggestive ministry ! Beloved, 
do you want this inward monitor, this con- 
tinual guide, this sweet voice, this whisper- 



THE BAPTIZER. 255 

ing presence, this tender mother, and guide 
and friend ? Oh ! come to Jesus, who 
baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, and receive 
His richest gift this day. 

c. He will not only teach, but "He will 
guide us into all truth." This is more than 
teaching; this is the direction of our steps, 
the leading of our feet into the paths of 
His holy will. Wisdom is more than knowl- 
edge, and guidance more than instruction. 
Wisdom is that which shows us where 
we are and ought to go, and keeps us 
from error and mistake; and this is the 
blessed Spirit's special ministry — to guide 
the trusting and obedient heart and let it 
make no mistake, '^For He is able to keep 
us from stumbling, and to present us fault- 
less before the presence of His glory with ex- 
ceeding joy." He will show us the way in 
which we ought to go. ''He will lead us in 
a straight way, wherein we shall not stum- 
ble." Oh, how often we have erred, and how 
sad the consequences of our mistakes! -How 
our feet have been wounded by the thorns, 



256 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

and our hearts have been pierced by the 
stings that have followed our disobedience, 
when we knew not why we stumbled ! But 
the blessed Spirit will give us light and keep 
us right, if we will but trust Him and follow 
Him, and receive Him in His fullness. 

d. He will give us succes in all our work 
for Him, '^For after that He is come, He 
will convict the world of sin, of righteous- 
ness, and of judgment." We cannot convict 
men of sin. We may pierce them with a 
thousand accusings, we may sting them 
with our reproaches, we may warn them 
with our most solemn messages, we may 
plead with them with the utmost pathos 
and tenderness, but we cannot bring convic- 
tion to their consciences. But He can. He 
can make a single word enter the heart like 
a barbed arrow, and slay the pride and self- 
confidence, and lay the sinner in the dust. 
He can make a single look send Peter down 
to weep the tender tears that melted, but 
did not break his heart. 

And He can convict them of right- 



THE BAPTIZER. 25Y 

eousness. He can show them the Saviour 
as their Righteousness, and He can en- 
able the poor sinner, as we point him 
to Jesus, to "behold the Lamb of God, 
which taketh away the sin of the world," 
and to trust himself in His loving arms, 
and to take him as His own Saviour, 
and to know that He does save, forgive, 
and sweetly accept forever. He can show 
the poor, struggling heart God's righteous- 
ness; Jesus as the Sanctifier, the Keeper, the 
Eest,and enable us to commit our souls to His 
keeping, and know that what we have com- 
mitted to Him He is able to keep against 
that day, and so go forward in victory and 
praise. 

And He can convict the world of judg- 
ment, "because the prince of this world is 
judged." That is, it seems to us. He can 
make the poor, baffled, beaten heart to 
know that Satan is overcome, that through 
Jesus he is a conquered foe, and that now 
we need fear him no more, but may stand 
in complete victory, and know that neither 



258 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

life, nor death, nor earth, nor hell can ever 
separate us from the love of Christ. 

e. Again, He gives us power. ^'For ye 
shall receive power after the Holy Ghost is 
come upon you," was the Master's parting 
word, '^and ye shall be witnesses unto me." 
This is not the power of human persuasion 
or natural ability of any kind, but it is the 
divine power working through us. It is that 
which makes our words and acts effectual. 
It is that strange influence which makes 
things tell, and often brings out the very 
little things mighty and lasting results. 
This made Peter's sermon on the day of 
Pentecost, although the utterance of a few 
simple words of truth, the means of con- 
verting thousands of souls. This made Paul's 
ministry mighty through God to the estab- 
lishment of Christianity in all the world. 
And this will make the weak things to con- 
found the things that are mighty; the 
things that are despised, the foolish things, 
yea, the things that are not, to bring to 
naught the things that are, that the weak- 



THE BAPTIZER. 259 

ness of God may be stronger than men and 
the foohshness of God wiser than men; for 
Christ is the power of God and the wisdom 
of God through the Holy Ghost. 

/. Again, the Holy Ghost gives us cour- 
age. ^^ Perceiving the boldness of Peter 
and John, they took knowledge of them 
that they had been with Jesus," and so 
^' God hath not given us the spirit of fear." 
The Holy Ghost is courage. He makes the 
heart strong, and sets the face like a flint 
in the steps of, faith, and the path of duty, 
and the battle of the Lord. Timid one, 
would you be brave; fearful one, would you 
be strong; shrinking one, would you stand 
firm ? '' Eeceive ye the Holy Ghost." 

g. Again, He gives us wisdom. This 
was the endowment of Stephen and his 
brethren. This was the apostle's assurance 
to Timothy, ^'God.hathgiven us the Spirit of 
a sound mind." It was He who guided and 
governed the apostolic church. It was He 
who enabled Paul to form his plans and 
purposes. Especially do we read in the hfe 



260 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

of Paul that at a certain crisis he purposed 
in the Spirit that he would adopt a certain 
plan of workj and pursue certain lines in 
his missionary journey; and, although 
every influence on earth and every power 
from beneath, seemed leagued together to 
defeat his purpose, and even the very 
saints of God and the prophets of inspira- 
tion tried to turn him aside, that purpose 
which had been formed ^'in the Spirit" 
was literally fulfilled, and he was held to it 
with the tenacity of victorious faith. So 
He will guide our plans, establish our pur- 
poses, and accomplish our highest, holiest 
desires for the glory and work of God. 

h. Again, He is the Spirit of love. After 
the gifts of power referred to, in the twelfth 
chapter of first Corinthians, the apostle 
tells us that the greatest of these is love; 
and it is emphatic, it is very important to 
notice that the terms in which this is spoken 
of, distinctly imply that it is not a human 
virtue or the exercise of any will of onr 
own, or any feeling of our natural heart, 



THE BAPTIZER. 261 

but it is a distinct and supernatural gift of 
the Spirit. 

The word for love is charitas, and the 
word for the gift of grace is, charts, so that 
it is distinctly recognized as a divine gift, and 
not in any sense a personal quality. He 
will give us this wondrous love in all its 
fullness, sweetness and victorious power. 

Would you have the love that suffers long 
and is kind ? Receive the Holy Ghost. 
Would you have the love that vaunteth not 
itself and is not puffed up, but acts ever 
with sweet and lowly meekness ? Eeceive 
the Holy Ghost. Would you have the love 
that doth not behave itself unseemly, and 
cannot do a rude act or speak a hard and 
harmful word ? Eeceive the Holy Ghost. 
Would you have the love that seeketh not 
her own, but is ever self -forgetful, lives for 
others and for God without thinking for itself ? 
Receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost. 
Would you have the love that thinketh no 
evil, that allows no thought of suspicion ever 
to touch you, that imagines no wrong in a 



262 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

brother, that would rather be deceived than 
think evil, that believeth all things with sim- 
ple, artless confidence, that hopeth all things, 
even though the present seems all wrong, 
and covers the future with faith, and prayer, 
and blessing, even for the unworthy heart ? 
Would you know the rest of being saved 
from thinking of your brother's faults, and 
living in a constant atmosphere of sweetest 
confidence and innocency, and harmless like 
a little nestling dove ? Eeceive from Jesus 
His greatest gift. Eeceive from the Spirit 
His richest. His highest grace, the grace of 
heavenly love. Would you have the love 
that never f aileth, that never again is going 
to let you stumble, never again pierce your 
heart with a thorn, never again to sting you 
with that with which you stung your 
brother ? Come to Him who baptizeth with 
the Holy Ghost, and let Him put into you 
to-day the same Spirit that made Him holy, 
harmless, undefiled and separate from sin- 
ners, the Christ of love. 

i. Again, He is the Spirit that shields yon 



THE BAPTIZER. 263 

from temptation, and gives you victory in 
the hour of conflict; for ^'when the enemy 
cometh in Hke a flood, the Spirit of the Lord 
shall lift up a standard against him," and 
He will so fill you with His own presence 
that the shafts shall not stick, but He in you 
shall resist, repel, and hurl back all the wild 
billows of the adversary's rage. Like the 
red-hot iron which repels the slightest par- 
ticle of water or dust from adhering to it 
because of its heat, so the kindled Spirit 
shall throw off the touches of the enemy, 
and you shall move on in glory and victory, 
and '' He shall be a wall of fire around you, 
and the glory in the midst." 

j. Again, He is the Spirit of prayer, for 
^Hhe Spirit maketh intercession within us* 
with groanings which cannot be uttered." 
This is our highest service for God; and 
they who are e^er filled with the Spirit, will 
be able to touch the throne with the very 
power of God, and the prayer that rises 
from your heart will be a divine power, and 
He will know instinctively that it has the 



264 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

answer even before it asks, because it is the 
thought and will of God reflected back 
again to Him from whom it came. Oh! 
would you have the power that will move 
heaven and earth, that will prevail with 
God and man, that will take the fullness of 
Christ's promises for these last days, that 
will meet the mighty conflicts that are com- 
ing in victorious omnipotence, beloved, come 
to Him who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, 
and be endued with power from on high. 

We are in the days of supernatural con- 
flict, we are touching the borders of the 
tribulation times. We are feeling the 
dragon- wing that is in a little while to over- 
shadow the earth and blot out the very light 
of the sun. We are nearing these dark 
hours from which Christ is to call up His 
own elect. Deeper, stronger, subtler than 
ever before; more penetrating, more mighty 
are the weapons that are against us, and 
the forms that assail us and resist us. We 
must be endued with power from on high. 
We must be encased in the armor of flre. 



THE BAPTIZER. 265 

We must be filled with the living God. We 
must be baptized with the Holy Ghost, and 
baptized as we never have been before with 
the all-encompassing presence of God, where 
no joint in the harness can let in an arrow 
of the enemy, and no slip for a single second 
give Him the slightest advantage. Oh! thou 
who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, hear 
thy people's prayer, robe them in thine own 
omnipotence, clothe them in the garments 
of thy fire, baptize them, with the fullness 
of the seven-fold Holy Ghost, and keep them 
abiding in thee, and walking in the Spirit 
every breath and every step. 

k. Again, He is the Spirit of hope. ^'Now 
the God of patience fill you with all joy and 
peace in believing, that ye may abound in 
hope through the power of the Holy Ghost." 
He, and He alone, can take the fears from 
out of your heart, and the shadows from 
off your future. He can thrust away the 
dark clouds of dread that blot out all light 
and confidence, and that cover everything 
with the dismal shadow of despair. He can 



266 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

illumine your own path through life with 
sweet and heavenly confidence. He can un- 
fold to you the vision of the land that is very 
far off. He can show the stretches of the 
outreaching of God's blessed promises for 
you, and all His gL'rious work for you. 
Yes, He can show you the coming of the 
King in His glory, and even touch your 
heart with the thrill of personal hope, and 
the expectation of beholding Him with these 
mortal eyes, and preparing this world for 
His glorious advent. 

III. WHAT IS IMPLIED IN RECEIVING THIS 
BAPTISM. 

1. The very thought of baptism suggests 
the deeply solemn thought of death and 
resurrection. Baptism is burial and a new 
life; and, therefore, to receive the fullness 
of the Holy Spirit there must be death; the 
death of much, nay, the death of all that 
will and can die, for only that which is im- 
perishable ought to live. The gold cannot 
be burned, therefore you need not fear to 



THE BAPTIZER. 267 

die in the arms of Jesus to everything that 
is capable of dying; and everything that 
will not die is safe, for only that which is 
divine can stand the fire of God. Yield 
yourself unto His death in all the fullness of 
His thought, and then rise into life in all 
the fullness of His will, and be baptized 
into the Spirit. Therefore you, that have 
died to self and earth, have received, and 
will receive in that measure the fullness of 
His Spirit and life, even in those very 
places where you have most truly died. 
And you, that have not received the full- 
ness of His baptism, are, perhaps, hindered 
because in some place you have not died 
with your Lord, or having died, have not 
risen again into His resurrection life; for 
there comes a call to arise as well as to die, 
and the voice of heaven, which says, 
' ' Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the 
glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. " 

2. The term baptism suggests great full- 
ness. It is into an ocean that you are 
baptized. It is not a sprinkled drop, but it 



268 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

is a great unfathomable sea^ and God is 
calling us to go out into the deeps of Him- 
self. Too long we stayed in the shallow 
surf, swept by its surges, defiled by its 
miry waters, and beaten by its mighty 
breakers. Out beyond are the depths of 
calm, the fullness unfathomable. Let us 
launch out into the deep, out into the full- 
ness of God. 

3. Again, this figure suggests great sim- 
plicity of receiving the Holy Ghost. It is 
easy to be baptized. You have just to let 
yourself go and sink into the floods, or lie 
restfuUy in the hand that upholds you, or 
on the bosom of the wave whereon you re- 
pose. So it is a very simple thing to receive 
the Holy Ghost. It is trust. How little 
we trust the Spirit ! How we strive, and 
strain, and do violence to nature in the 
struggle after some deep filling, when in 
quietness and restfulness we might receive 
His heavenly life and infiuence. 

The rock of Kadesh was the type of the 
Holy Spirit's deeper overflowing; and the 



THE BAPTIZER. 200 

command of Moses was to speak to the 
rock, but on no account to strike it; and 
his striking the rock became a sin and of- 
fence, which did not hinder the water com- 
ing, but hindered his full blessing. There 
is something very suggestive in this simple 
thought of speaking to the rock. It is the 
attitude of simple trust, and confidence, and 
quietness. Let us speak to the rock. Let 
us draw near in the desert, amid the hot 
and burning sands, thirsty, weary, fainting, 
everything around us wretched and sad. 
The face of yonder rock seems hard as flint, 
but in its bosom are stores of infinite re- 
freshing. It needs no violent grasp, or 
voice, or touch to bring them forth. Speak 
the word of simple trust. Speak to the 
rock, and lo ! the waters will gush forth in 
streams of refreshing, and you shall drink, 
and you shall lave in their cool tides until 
the wilderness and the solitary place shall 
be glad, and the desert shall blossom as the 
rose. It is Jesus who is that rock He is 
standing before thee now. He that baptiz- 



270 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

eth thee with the Holy Ghost, He loves 
thee, He redeemed thee, He will never fail 
if thou wilt trust Him. Trust Him for the 
Holy Ghost, and sweetly receive His infinite 
fullness, that thou may est have, to give to a 
thirsty world, the fullness which He has 
given thee. 

Fainting in the desert, Israel's thousands stand 
At the rock of Kadesh, hark ! the Lord's command, 
Speak to the rock, bid the waters flow. 
Strike not its bosom, opened long ago, 
Speak to the rock 'till the waters flow. 

Blessed Rock of Ages, thou art open still, 
Blessed Holy Spirit all our being fill; 
Still thou dost say, wherefore struggle so ? 
Call to the Spirit, whisper soft and low, 
Speak to the rock, bid the waters flow. 

Oh, for trust most simple, fully to believe. 
Oh, for hearts more childlike, freely to rt-ceive; 
E'en as a babe, on its mother's breast. 
So, on thy bosom let my spirit rest, 
Filled with thy life, with thy blessing blest. 

Speak to the rock, bid the waters flow, 
Doubt not the Spirit, given long ago; 
Take what He waiteth, freely to bestow. 
Drink 'till its fullness all thy being know. 



CHAPTER XV. 



CHRIST THE LIVING VINE. 

''I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that 
abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth 
forth much fruit : for without me ye can do 
nothing." John xiv : 5. 

fHE vine is the most important produc- 
tion of the vegetable creation ; therefore 
it has been used by the devil for greater 
harm than anything that God ever made, 
for Satan ever loves to steal God's best gifts. 
God has always used the vine as the symbol 
of the most sacred things, its juice being the 
type of Christ's blood, and its stems and 
branches the most perfect figure of the 
mystery of Godliness, Christ's union with 
His people. The Scriptures give us no pro- 
founder view of Christian life than these 
verses contain. Let us look first at the 
spiritual teaching, and then at some illustra- 
tions of this in the figure itself. 



2T2 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

I. UNION WITH JESUS. 

The first truth conveyed in the Master's 
teachmg is that of union with Jesus. There 
are two sides to this. The first is "in me," 
the second, " I in you." The first expresses 
our justification ; the second our deej)er 
union with Christ in sanctification. To be 
in Christ is to accept Him as our Saviour, 
and to be justified through His blood and 
righteousness, accepted by the Father for 
His sake, and received into all His rights and 
privileges, as the children of God and the re- 
deemed family of Christ. There are two 
races, the Adam race, and the Christ race. 
We are all born in Adam, and in Adam all 
die, but all who are in Christ shall be made 
alive. And so we came into Christ by re- 
ceiving Him as our Head and our Saviour, 
and being born again into His life through 
His Holy Spirit. Every believer is in Christ, 
and there is no condemnation to them that 
are in Christ Jesus, for we are made accepted 
in the Beloved. 

To be in Christ has reference rather to our 



CHRIST THE LIVING VINE. 2Y3 

standing than our actual experience. It de- 
notes the relationship between us and Christ, 
rather than the actual life, and realization 
of His presence and communion. Of course, 
it will bring an actul experience ; but that is 
more fully described by the other phrase, ^^ I 
in you." This is the other side of our union 
with Jesus. It is that which brings Him 
personally into actual touch with us, for 
this is the great mystery of redemption, that 
Christ actually comes to dweU in the heart 
that is in Him, making it His personal resi- 
dence and chosen home, and filling it with 
His love and joy and purity. In the pre- 
vious chapter He had already explained this 
union, and declared that it would be the first 
result of the Holy Spirit's coming into the 
heart, that He should reveal it, consummate 
it, and make it intensely real to our consci- 
ousness. ^^ At that day," He says (the day 
of the Holy Spirit's coming to abide with us), 
"ye shall know that I am in my Father, and 
ye in me, and I in you." And still later He 
added, ''If a man love me, He will keep my 



274 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

commandments, and I will love Him and 
manifest myself unto Him." And then He 
adds still further, ^' My Father will love him, 
and we will come in unto him, and make 
our abode with him." This is the glorious 
reality to which He refers in this figure. ^'I 
in you." 

Again and again it is unfolded in the later 
teachings of the New Testament. The apostle 
declares that it was His great mission to un- 
fold it, ^^the mystery hid from ages and 
generations, which is Christ in you, the 
hope of glory. It is the last appeal of the 
ascended Lord to the churches in Asia, that 
they will open the door and let Him come in, 
'^and sup with them, and they with Him." 
It is the last thought in His own intercessory 
prayer as He commits His dear disciples to 
His Father's keeping," and prays that 'Hhe 
love wherewith thou hast loved me may be 
in them, and I in them." It is the secret of 
peace ; for He says, ^^My peace I give unto 
you." It is the secret of joy ; for He says, 
^'My joy shall remain in you." It is the 



CHRIST THE LIVING VINE. 2^5 

secret of faith ; for the apostle says, '^ Christ 
hveth in me, and the Hfe I now hve in the 
flesh I hve by the faith of the Son of God, 
who loved me, and gave Himself for me." 
It is the secret of holiness; for ^'Christ is 
made unto us of God sanctification. " It is 
the secret of power ; for ^^I can do all things 
through Christ which strengtheneth me." 
It is the secret of all things, the solution of 
all problems, the spring of all spiritual bless- 
ings, for they are all in Christ Jesus. Such 
then, are the two sides of our union with 
Christ, ^^He in us," and ^^we in Him," even 
as the branch is in the vine, the members 
are in the body, the Son is in the Father. 

2. The next truth conveyed here is com- 
munion. ^^ Abide in me." One with Him 
we must act according to the fact of our 
union, and keep up the fellowship and mu- 
tual relationships involved in this union. 
When the wife is married it is expected that 
she will act accordingly, and maintain the 
attitude of a wife by fellowship and depend- 
ence. When a partnership is formed between 



276 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

two human beings, they are expected to co- 
operate according to the agreement ; and 
when the soul and Christ become united, 
there are certain actual relationships, and 
mutual fellowships, which are to be con- 
stantly maintained. This is spoken of as 
abiding, and upon the steadiness and simplic- 
ity of this depends the happiness and power 
of our Christian life. One of the attitudes 
implied in abiding, is dependence. It is the 
habit of continually looking to Christ for 
everything; for He says, ^^ apart from me 
ye can do nothing." We are to continually 
distrust ourselves, and feel our utter inabil- 
ity to think a right thought, and to look to 
Him in utter helplessness, and yet in trust- 
ful reliance for every breath and thought 
and feeling, taking our life each moment 
from Him, both for soul and body, bringing 
every temptation to Him, every need, every 
desire, and living really by Him and on Him, 
as a babe upon its mother. 

Another idea expressed by abiding is fel- 
lowship in prayer. There is a near atmos- 



CHRIST THE LIVING VINE. 27Y 

phere of prayer and communion which may 
be ceaselessly maintained between the soul 
and the Saviour. Its spirit is very subtle, its 
home is like the Holy of Holies, its atmos- 
phere is pure and fragrant as the inner 
chamber of the sanctuary. It is sullied by a 
breath of sin, it is broken by a thought of 
distrust and disobedience. It is a very close 
place in the '^secret of the most High, and 
under the shadow of the Almighty." There 
it is that we learn to pray without ceasing, 
and in everything give thanks, and like 
Enoch, walk with God. 

Another thought suggested by abiding is 
the momentary life. It is not a life of drift 
and impulse, not a life in which we act on 
general principles, but a moment by moment 
dependence upon Christ. It is simply find- 
ing that the life that can be maintained for 
one moment can be equally maintained for 
innumerable moments. It is just living out 
the simple word of Paul in Colossians, '^ As 
ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so 
walk ye in Him. " 



278 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

There are certain principles affecting this 
hfe of abiding. It is a principle of human 
nature, that a succession of momentary acts 
repealed for a certain time, produces a habit 
of thought and feehng, and that which at 
first is a somewhat labored purpose and 
requires much vigilance to maintain, gradu- 
aUj grows into a delightful habit of depend- 
ence, and the momentary acts of abiding 
are so simple that they are Hke the breathing 
of the lungs. 

Our abiding depends upon our obedience. 
'^If ye ke^p my commandments ye shall 
abide in my love." We shall find ourselves, 
sometimes, in positions where we cannot 
touch Christ for help and blessing, and the 
reason is that there is some obstacle between 
us and our Lord, and some disobedience or 
sin which must be removed. It is a matter 
not only of trust, but also of rightness, and 
we will find that our peace and communion 
depend upon walking closely with Him and 
hearkening unto His holy wiU. It is if His 
words abide in us that we have the promise. 



CHRIST THE LIVING VINE. 279 

' ' Ye shall ask what ye will. ' ' He will show 
us faithfully the disobedience or the cloud, 
and will enable us to put it aside, and then 
will restore to us the joy of His communion 
and the fullness of His very Spirit. So let 
us abide in Him. 

II. THE EFFECTS OF ABIDING. 

1. Cleansing. ^^Now ye are clean 
through the word that I have spoken unto 
you. " This word was spoken in the thirteenth 
chapter. It came through the washing of 
the disciples' feet. And so still He waits to 
wash our feet from the stains of the way, 
and except He wash we have no part with 
Him. We must be cleansed, and keep clean 
in order to maintain our communion. 

2. The second effect of abiding is fruitful- 
ness. '^He that abideth in me, and I in 
Him, the same bringeth forth much fruit." 
Fruit is different from effort. The farmer 
toils in his garden as he prunes and waters 
the tree and cultivates the ground, but the 
tree has no toil or effort, but with sponta- 



280 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

neous freedom sends forth its leaves, its blos- 
soms, and its fruits. And so in the Christian 
life there is no effort in bearing fruit if we 
have the life of Christ within us. It springs 
spontaneously from the full heart. The 
mother of liberty and love, and the fruit of 
the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
and all the sweet grapes of Christian life, 
besides the reproducing of ourselves in the 
lives and souls we bring to Christ. 

3. The next effect of abiding is answered 
prayer. " We shall ask what we will, and 
it shall be done unto us, if we abide in Him, 
and His words abide in us." The reason of 
this is, our prayer will be His prayer, our 
desire will be His desire, our thought will be 
His thought, our faith will be His faith, and 
Ave will know as we ask that He accepts and 
gives because He prompts the prayer as He 
walks with us. 

4. The next effect of His abiding is His 
love. ^^ Continue ye, or abide ye, in my 
love. As the Father hath loved me, even so 
have I loved you." It is a blessed thing to 



CHRIST THE LIVING VINE. 2S1 

live in love. Some people live in an atmos- 
phere of constant duty. Our privilege is to 
live in an atmosphere of love, and to be so 
pervaded with the dear love of Jesus that we 
shall kuow that He is always pleased with 
us, though we often make mistakes, yet He 
accepts our true heart and loves us with all 
His heart. 

5. Again, abiding will bring us joy. 
'' These these things have I spoken unto you, 
that my joy might remain with you, and 
that your joy might be full." If He is in us, 
His joy will be in us, and our hearts will 
spring and sing w4th a gladness not our own, 
but wholly prompted by His Spirit within 
us. 

6. Again, abiding will lead to obedience, 
implicit and constant obedience ; for He says, 
''ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I 
command you." This is not obedience usu- 
ally, but it is obedience unconditionally and 
under all circumstances to ''whatsoever I 
command you." 

7. Again, abiding will bring us His per- 



282 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

sonal and confidential friendship. ^^ Ye are 
my f riendSj if ye do whatsoever I command 
you. Henceforth I call you not servants ; 
for the servant knoweth not what His Lord 
doeth, but I have called you friends, for all 
things that I have heard of my Father I 
have made known unto you." It is delight- 
ful to walk with Jesus in holy confidence, 
and know that we have His freest commun- 
ion, and that He treats us as His beloved 
ones. 

8. Again, abiding will lead to permanence 
in our work. ^'Ye have not chosen me, but I 
have chosen 5^ou, and ordained you that ye 
should go and bring forth fruit, and that your 
fruit should remain." That which springs 
from Him shall last, and shall meet us 
again, not only here, but in the life to come. 
These are the blessings of abiding. How 
precious, how complete, how eternal! Oh, 
that we may not miss one of them, but live 
so closely to our Lord that we shall have all 
the good pleasure of His goodness, and the 
fullness of His blessing! 



CHRIST THE LIVING VINE. 283 

Iir. SOME ILLUSTRATIONS OF THESE TRUTHS 

FROM THE FIGURE OF THE VINE 

AND ITS BRANCHES. 

1. The vine and the branch are one. The 
vine it not separate from the branch, but 
the vine includes the branch. And so Christ 
is not the vine separated from us; but the 
full Christ consists of Christ the Head, and 
us the body. Christ has become forever so 
identified with us that He needs us to com- 
plete Himself. His joy is not complete 
without us. His glory is fulfilled in our 
glory and blessing. 

2. The branches need much pruning. 
Much of the gardener's work is to prune 
down the growth that is excessive, and that 
would simply produce show and not .fruit. 
And so our gentle and gracious Father cuts 
back much of our life that would simply 
grow into selfish luxuriance, and only leaves 
that which can bear real fruit unto Him. 
Let us trust Him. He is not destroying the 
tree, but only correcting it and its form, and 
enriching its fruitfulness, its value. 



I 



284 THE NAMES OF JESUS. 

3. The branches that bear fruit in the 
vine are the fresh ones. The httle shoots 
that shall spring forth this spring, they, and 
they only bear the fruit. The old dried 
branches bear no fruit. They support the 
ones that do. And so there must be con- 
stant freshness and growth to our spiritual 
life, if there is to be fruit. Only that which 
God is really doing in you, and doing to-day, 
will bear fruit to others. You cannot take 
the experience of a year ago, and serve the 
Lord with that, but you must know Christ 
to-day in fresh and ceaseless communion, or 
you cannot accomplish any effective work 
for Him. 

4. The vine is of no use for anything else 
but for fruit. It cannot be made into lum- 
ber or furniture ; it has but one purpose. 
And so the Christian, especially the conse- 
crated Christian, is worthless and useless, 
unless to abide in Christ and bear fruit for 
God. Oh, that we may continually abide 
and bear much fruit, for '^herein is the 
Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit," 



CHRIST THE LIVING VINE. 



285 



and the Son satisfied for the travail of His 
soul and the sacrifice of His life. 




H 36 82 ^i 



} 



I 



'^m^.^ /-c^ -.PK* 0^ ■% •^^* J 








A.-- *1d **^^^'»' Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide ! 

Y^ • • "^ * ^ T-^^tr^ont natP- .liilv 2005 

^"^ V- "^^ c'^'^ ♦ PreservationTechnologies V 

■^ •* ^ S V A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION ^ 

111 Thomson ParK Drive S\l 

Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 ^ 
{724^779-2111 * 







.'C' 



».°v 















